The US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said that the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna Covid-19 vaccines have been found to be 94% effective in health care workers.
The confirmation of the vaccines follows the conduct of studies with a larger sample size from across a wider geographical area than in the clinical trials.
This disclosure is contained in a statement issued by CDC on Friday, stating that mRNA vaccines (Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna) were found to reduce the risk of getting sick with Covid-19 by 94% among Health Care Personnel (HCP) who were fully vaccinated.
The preliminary study results released on Friday further supported previous data on the effectiveness of the two vaccines, which use mRNA technology and have been widely administered in the U.S.
The researchers estimated that those who were fully vaccinated were 94% less likely to develop symptomatic Covid-19, while people who were partially vaccinated were 82% less likely.
What the CDC Director is saying
The CDC Director, Rochelle P. Walensky, MD, MPH, in a statement, said, “This report provided the most compelling information to date that COVID-19 vaccines were performing as expected in the real world.
This study, added to the many studies that preceded it, was pivotal to CDC changing its recommendations for those who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19.”
Going further, the statement pointed out that the result of the study supported the CDC’s recommendation that everyone should get both doses of an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine to get the most protection.
What you should know
The quest to contain the spread of the coronavirus pandemic got a boost about a week ago as the World Health Organization (WHO) announced the approval of China’s Sinopharm vaccine for Covid-19 vaccination. The vaccine is reported to have 79% efficacy against the disease.
The CDC, on May 2, 2021, expanded Covid-19 vaccination recommendations to include adolescents 12 years through 15 years of age under the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Emergency Use Authorisation.
These adolescents are now authorised to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.
