Pfizer is also effective against the Delta variant in adolescents. With the publication of the data of the latest observational study conducted by an international team from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston and the Clalit Research Institute in Tel Aviv, there are no longer any doubts about it: the RNA vaccine proved effective at 90 % in preventing infection with the Delta variant, effectively hindering the infection and spread of the virus among adolescents.
The US Food and Drug Administration approved the emergency use of Pfizer in children aged 12 and older last May, then expanding the recommendation from the age of 5. Recommendation that yesterday also reiterated Ema, the European agency. The administration in young people started before Delta became the dominant strain of severe acute respiratory syndrome from coronavirus and therefore “more evidence was needed on the efficacy of the vaccine among adolescents, particularly against this variant,” the researchers write.
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The study was published yesterday in the scientific journal New England Journal of Medicine of the Massachusetts Medical Society and immediately had great echo, amplified by the news of the approval by the EMA of the administration of Pfizer in children from 5 years of age throughout Europe as “the benefits outweigh the risks”. “In adolescents the vaccine is 90% effective against infection (not disease) in the presence of the Delta variant. In the face of those who say that the vaccine does not hinder contagion”, commented the virologist Roberto Burioni on Twitter, publishing the table with the effectiveness percentages published by the researchers.
“We used data from Clalit Health Services, the largest health organization in Israel, to conduct an observational cohort study involving adolescents aged 12 to 18 who had not had a previous Sars-Cov-2 infection, who were vaccinated between 8 June and 14 September 2021 – explains the author Ran Balicer -. According to the sequencing of samples obtained from infected people, performed by the Israeli Ministry of Health, the Delta variant was responsible for more than 95% of new infections in the general population in Israel “, making it a representative sample worldwide, everywhere. Delta has spread widely.
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Of 184,905 vaccinated adolescents, 130,464 met the eligibility requirements, and 94,354 of these were successfully matched to an equivalent unvaccinated control group, allowing for the percentage of effectiveness to be calculated. “The median follow-up was 27 days after baseline, which is the administration of the first dose among vaccinated subjects. The curves for Sars-Cov-2 infection in both groups were similar in the first few days, after which the incidence began to rise in the vaccinated group, from 59 to 90% efficacy against infection. The estimated efficacy of the symptomatic Covid-19 vaccine instead increased from 57% in the first 14 days to 93% after second dose “. Data mirroring findings from another American adolescent study against symptomatic non-Delta variant infection, as well as Pfizer’s efficacy data against variants in adults.
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