TWO shots of Pfizer’s Covid vaccine offers around 70 percent protection against severe disease from Omicron, according to results of a study published Tuesday in South Africa.
The emergence of the highly mutated variant, first detected in South Africa last month, sparked fears that it could cause severe disease, be more contagious or could evade vaccines.
Early indicators suggest that it could be more transmissible, but promising data so far has suggested that vaccines still offer protection against Omicron.
The latest research out of South Africa suggested that two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine still offered protection against serious illness.
“The double dose of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine showing 70 percent effectiveness in reducing risk of hospitalisation,” said Ryan Noach, the head of South Africa’s leading private health insurance company, Discovery, which co-led the study.
Two doses of the vaccine offered 93 percent protection against earlier variants, according to the companies.
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