WASHINGTON, Feb 25, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – The Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine proved 94
percent effective in a huge real world study published Wednesday that
involved 1.2 million people in Israel, confirming the power of mass
immunization campaigns to end the coronavirus pandemic.
The good news came as Ghana became the first country to receive shots
under the global Covax scheme, paving the way for poorer nations to catch up
with wealthier parts of the world.
The Israeli study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, also
demonstrated there is likely a strong protective benefit against infection, a
crucial element in breaking onward transmission.
“This is the first peer-reviewed large scale evidence for the
effectiveness of a vaccine in real world conditions,” Ben Reis, a researcher
at Harvard Medical School and one of the paper’s authors, told AFP.
It involved almost 600,000 people who received the shots and an equal
number who hadn’t but were closely matched to their vaccinated counterparts
by age, sex, geographic, medical and other characteristics.
The efficacy against symptomatic Covid-19 was 94 percent seven or more
days after the second dose — very close to the 95 percent achieved during
Phase 3 clinical trials.
More than 217 million vaccine doses have been administered globally,
according to an AFP tally Wednesday, though the vast majority have been given
in high-income countries.
Hopes are high that the inoculations will allow the world to finally
emerge from a pandemic that has killed more than 2.4 million, infected 112
million, and hammered the global economy.
But health experts have warned that unless the whole world has access to
vaccines, the pandemic will not end.
The head of the World Health Organization applauded the first delivery of
the Covax vaccines Wednesday.
“At last!” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a tweet.
The WHO is one of several organizations behind Covax, which aims to
deliver at least two billion doses globally by the end of the year.
The 600,000 doses delivered to Ghana in a ceremony broadcast live on
television are from Oxford-AstraZeneca, and will be administered in several
Ghanaian cities from Tuesday.
They are part of an initial tranche of deliveries bound for several low-
and middle-income countries, including to Ivory Coast this week.
Covax, led by Gavi the Vaccine Alliance, the WHO and the Coalition for
Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), is seeking to ensure vaccines are
equitably distributed globally.
In South Africa, struggling with a recession as well as the pandemic,
Finance Minister Tito Mboweni said the government planned to allocate 10
billion rand ($688 million) to buy and deliver coronavirus vaccines over the
next two years.
– Single-shot vaccine –
More upbeat data meanwhile emerged about Johnson & Johnson’s single-shot
vaccine, which was shown to be highly effective against severe Covid-19,
including newer variants, in detailed data released by the US regulator.
The vaccine is likely to be authorized soon, making it the third available
in the hardest-hit country.
US biotech firm Moderna also announced its new Covid vaccine candidate
aimed at the dangerous South African coronavirus variant had been shipped to
government labs for testing.
But Europe’s vaccine rollout faced fresh problems after AstraZeneca said
it would only be able to deliver half its promised doses to the EU, deepening
tensions with the bloc over supply shortfalls.
It is the latest setback for the bloc, which has come under fire for its
sluggish vaccine rollout.
EU chief Ursula von der Leyen was locked in a war of words with
AstraZeneca earlier this year after accusing the British-Swedish firm of
breaking a contract by delaying vaccine deliveries.
But she struck a more affable tone Wednesday, saying she was “optimistic”
about the rollout.
“New questions are always arising that we can generally resolve amicably,”
she told a German newspaper.
– Six Nations match on-
Elsewhere on the continent, Hungary forged ahead with its own campaign,
administering Chinese-made Sinopharm jabs in a first for the EU, having
already become the first EU nation to administer Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine.
Ukraine also celebrated a landmark Wednesday, giving a doctor the
country’s first Covid shot, a slow start to its own vaccination programme
that has sparked widespread anger there.
In Israel, parliament passed a law allowing the government to share the
identities of people not vaccinated against the coronavirus with other
authorities, raising privacy concerns for those opting out of inoculation.
In sports, a Six Nations rugby match between France and Scotland will go
ahead in Paris this weekend as planned despite an outbreak of coronavirus
cases in the home camp involving 15 players and staff.