Omicron Mutation: Vaccination with 2 doses of Pfizer can be 23% effective

Two doses of the Pfizer mRNA vaccine may be just 22.5% effective against symptomatic coronavirus infection from the Omicron mutation, but they can prevent serious disease, according to laboratory data from South Africa, according to Bloomberg.

Researchers at the African Institute for Health Research in Durban released additional data from a small study published earlier this week that assessed the effectiveness of the vaccine.

The study looked at blood plasma samples from 12 participants. The researchers found that the Omicron mutation infection reduced the levels of neutralizing antibodies produced by people who received two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine by about 41 times, compared with the strain detected in China before. for almost two years.

This “substantially jeopardizes the vaccine’s ability to protect against infection,” the team led by laboratory leader Alex Sigal said in a pre-release on Friday. Probably there is still adequate protection against the serious disease, scientists said.

Early UK data released on Friday showed that booster doses of AstraZeneca and Pfizer / BioNTech vaccines improve protection against the Homicron mutation by up to 75% in the first few days after vaccination.