- The latest research out of South Africa has suggested that double doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine offered protection against serious illness from Omicron.
- The study was conducted by South Africa’s leading private health insurance company, Discovery, and South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC).
The latest research out of South Africa has suggested that double doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine offered protection against serious illness from Omicron. The study was conducted by South Africa’s leading private health insurance company, Discovery, and the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC). The research dispels fears that the highly mutated variant, first detected in South Africa last month, could cause severe disease, be more contagious or could evade vaccines.
Ryan Noach, the head of Discovery, claimed that the double dose of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine showed 70 percent effectiveness in reducing the risk of hospitalisation. The assumption is based on the results of 78,000 PCR tests taken in South Africa between November 15 and December 7. Though the results are encouraging, Noach cautioned that hospitals could still be overrun since Omicron is spreading rapidly in South Africa.
To stem the new infections, South Africa approved booster shots for all citizens over the age of 18 last week. Only one third of the South African population as of now is vaccinated though the government had targeted to vaccinate around 70 percent of the population by year’s end. This possibly may be achieved only by March 2022.
