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LONDON, March 1 (Reuters) - The Pfizer and
AstraZeneca vaccines are more than 80% effective at
preventing hospitalisations from COVID-19 in those over 80
after one dose of either shot, Public Health England (PHE) said
on Monday, citing a pre-print study.
PHE said the real world study, with data generated from
Britain's vaccine rollout, also found that protection against
symptomatic COVID in those over 70 ranged between 57-61% for one
dose of Pfizer-BioNTech's vaccine and between 60-73% for the
Oxford-AstraZeneca one four weeks after the first shot.
"These results may also help to explain why the number of
COVID admissions to intensive care units among people over 80 in
the UK have dropped to single figures in the last couple of
weeks, which is something I know that we all welcome," health
minister Matt Hancock said at a news conference.
"This is seriously encouraging."
PHE added that evidence for the Pfizer vaccine suggested it
leads to an 83% reduction in deaths from COVID-19. There was not
equivalent data on mortality effect of the AstraZeneca vaccine,
which began to be administered at a later date.
PHE Head of Immunisations Mary Ramsay said that while more
work needed to be done to understand the impact on vaccines in
reducing transmission of the coronavirus, the effect of the
rollout was already apparent.
“This adds to growing evidence showing that the vaccines are
working to reduce infections and save lives," she said.
"While there remains much more data to follow, this is
encouraging and we are increasingly confident that vaccines are
making a real difference."
Another PHE official said that more work needed to be done
to establish the efficacy of vaccines against the so-called
Brazilian variant of the coronavirus.
(Reporting by Alistair Smout; editing by Michael Holden)
