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Maayan Lubell
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – The coronavirus variant discovered in South Africa could evade the protection offered by Pfizer / BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine to some extent, a real data study has found in Israel, although the prevalence of which in the country very low is research was not judged by peer.
The study, released on Saturday, compared nearly 400 people who tested positive for COVID-19 for 14 days or more after receiving one or two doses of the vaccine, against the same number of at-risk patients with the disease.
It fits under age and gender, among other characteristics.
According to the study by the University of Tel Aviv and Israel’s largest healthcare provider, Clalit, the South African variant, B.1.351, was found to account for approximately 1% of all COVID-19 cases for all the people studied.
However, among patients who received two doses of the vaccine, the incidence of the variant was eight times higher than that which was not vaccinated – 5.4% versus 0.7%.
This suggests that the vaccine is less effective against the South African variant, compared to the original coronavirus and a variant first identified in Britain that contains almost all COVID-19 cases in Israel, the researchers said. said.
‘We found an excessively higher percentage of the South African variant among people who were vaccinated with a second dose, compared to the group who were not vaccinated. This means that the South African variant can to some extent break through the protection of the vaccine, ‘said Adi Stern, University of Tel Aviv.
However, the researchers warned that the study had only a small sample size of people infected with the South African variant due to its scarcity in Israel.
They also said that the research was not intended to derive the total vaccine efficacy against any variant, as only people who have already tested positive for COVID-19 are not looked at, not against the overall infection rates.
Pfizer declined to comment on the Israeli study.
Pfizer and BioNTech said on April 1 that their vaccine was approximately 91% effective in preventing COVID-19, citing updated trial data that included participants vaccinated for up to six months.
They tested a third dose of their shot as an enhancer, and said they could change the shot to specifically address new variants if needed.
Regarding the South African variant, they said that among a group of 800 study volunteers in South Africa, where B.1.351 is widespread, there were nine cases of COVID-19, all of which occurred among participants who had the got placebo. Of the nine cases, six were infected with the South African variant.
Some previous studies have indicated that the Pfizer / BioNTech shot was less potent against the B.1.351 variant than against other variants of the coronavirus, yet offered a strong defense.
VARIANT IS NOT DISTRIBUTED
Although the results of the study may be worrying, the low prevalence of the South African tribe was encouraging, according to Stern of Tel Aviv University.
“Although the South African variant did break through the protection of the vaccine, it did not spread widely among the population,” Stern said, adding that the British variant might “block” the spread of the South African strain.
Nearly 53% of Israel’s 9.3 million population received both doses of Pfizer. Israel has largely reopened its economy over the past few weeks while the pandemic appears to be declining, with infection rates, serious illnesses and hospitalizations declining sharply.
About a third of Israelis are under the age of 16, which means they are still not eligible for the shot.