Pfizer vax 97% effective in symptomatic COVID cases: Study

Pfizer-BioNtech's COVID-19 vaccine offers at least 97 percent effectiveness in symptomatic COVID-19 cases, according to real world data published by the pharma company.

The analysis, based on real world data gathered by the Israel Ministry of Health, also found the vaccine's effectiveness at 94 percent against asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections.

"We are extremely encouraged that the real-world effectiveness data coming from Israel are confirming the high efficacy demonstrated in our Phase 3 clinical trial and showing the significant impact of the vaccine in preventing severe disease and deaths due to COVID-19," Luis Jodar, Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, Pfizer Vaccines, said in a statement.

The latest data analysis finds unvaccinated individuals were 44 times more likely to develop symptomatic COVID-19 and 29 times more likely to die from this virus-borne disease.

This comprehensive real-world evidence can be of importance to countries around the world as they advance their own vaccination campaigns one year after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic, the statement said.

In January, Pfizer and the Israel MoH entered into a collaboration agreement to monitor the real-world impact of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.

The findings from the analysis were derived from de-identified aggregate Israel MoH surveillance data collected between January 17 and March 6, 2021.

For all outcomes, vaccine effectiveness was measured from two weeks after the second dose.