Coronavirus: two AstraZeneca vaccine doses could be up to 90 per cent effective, UK real-world data suggests
- The preliminary findings are the first such results from a real-world setting, but are not conclusive, says Public Health England
- Pfizer shot effectiveness drops off 10 weeks after first dose
Britain has suffered one of the worst death tolls globally from the pandemic, but has also had one of the fastest vaccine roll-outs, generating a lot of data about the use of the shots in real-world settings.
It was the first country to roll out AstraZeneca’s vaccine, which faced questions over the construction of its clinical trials, the efficacy of the vaccine and the optimal gap between doses of its shot.
PHE said the preliminary findings were the first of its kind on the effectiveness of two doses of AstraZeneca in a real-world setting but cautioned that it had “low confidence” in the findings, and the results would be inconclusive until more evidence was gathered.
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In a weekly surveillance report, Public Health England said the estimated effectiveness of the AstraZeneca vaccine, invented at the University of Oxford, was 89 per cent compared to unvaccinated people.
That compares to 90 per cent estimated effectiveness against symptomatic disease for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.
