Pfizer-BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine offers more protection than previously thought, with its effectiveness in preventing symptomatic disease reaching 97 percent according to real-world evidence published Thursday by the pharmaceutical companies, the Times of Israel is reporting.
Using data from January 17 to March 6 from Israel’s national vaccination campaign, Pfizer-BioNTech found that prevention against asymptomatic disease reached 94 percent.
An earlier real-world study using data from between December 20, 2020, and February 1, 2021, had shown effectiveness at preventing symptomatic disease at 94 percent and asymptomatic illness at 92 percent.
“This comprehensive real-world evidence… can be of importance to countries around the world as they advance their own vaccination campaigns one year after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic,” the two pharmaceutical companies said in a statement.
Israel’s inoculation campaign is the fastest in the world, with about 40 percent of the population already fully vaccinated against the virus.
Israel, which launched its vaccination campaign in December, has given the recommended two shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to just under four million of its roughly nine million people.
More than five million have received the first dose of the vaccine and nearly four million the second dose.
“Incidence rates in the fully vaccinated population have massively dropped compared to the unvaccinated population, showing a marked decline in hospitalized cases due to COVID-19,” said Israel’s Health Ministry director general Chezy Levy.
