COVID-19 vaccines still effective against Delta variant, says study

A recent study suggests thattwo doses of COVID-19 vaccine remains the best way to protect against the Delta variant.

As per the study, the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab offers the same high protection as the Pfizer-BioNTech after four to five months.

Add WION as a Preferred Source

However, neither of them is effective as it is against the Alpha variant, which is responsible for most UK infections last winter.

As a part of the study, the researchers analysed, two and a half million tests results from 743,526 participants in the UK's COVID-19 household-infection survey.

The results concluded that Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine had 93 per cent effectiveness against symptomatic infection two weeks after the second dose, compared with Oxford-AstraZeneca which was at 71 per cent.

Also, over time, the Pfizer-BioNTech's effectiveness dropped while the Oxford-AstraZeneca's remained largely the same.

Prof Sarah Walker, at the University of Oxford was quoted by the BBC as saying "when you start very very high, you've got a long way to go".

"The World Health Organization set the bar at 50 per centand we're way above that," she said.

"Both of these vaccines are still doing very well against Delta."

Few other discoveries of the study stated that people who have had COVID-19 gain even more antibodies when fully vaccinated. Also, younger people gain more protection from vaccination than older.