COVID-19 vaccine around 90% effective against Delta variant: Pfizer claims

Pfizer, the US-based pharmaceutical company, in a research found its coronavirus vaccine to be nearly 90% effective against the COVID-19 Delta variant.

New Delhi: The US-based pharmaceutical company Pfizer on Thursday claimed that its coronavirus vaccine is highly effective against the Delta variant. Pfizer's medical director in Israel Alon Rappaport cited data to confirm findings of the vaccine efficacy to be nearly 90%.

"The data we have today, accumulating from research we are conducting at the lab and including data from those places where the Indian variant, Delta, has replaced the British variant as the common variant, point to our vaccine being very effective, around 90%, in preventing the coronavirus disease, COVID-19," Rappaport was quoted as saying to local broadcaster Army Radio by Reuters.

The COVID-19 Delta variant has emerged as a new threat and is considered to be the reason behind the second wave. A second mutation of the variant, called Delta Plus, has also been reported in India and in several other countries, including the UK and the US. It is reportedly responsible for around 100 per cent of COVID-19 infections in the UK.

Notably, Pfizer is in the final stages of striking an agreement with India for its anti-COVID-19 vaccines.

Meanwhile, a study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases has claimed that a single dose of Pfizer or AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine offers around 60 per cent protection against infection from SARS-CoV-2 in adults aged 65 years and above.

This analysis included long-term care facility residents undergoing routine asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 testing between December 8, 2020 -- the date the first vaccine was administered in the study cohort -- and March 15, 2021 using national testing data linked within the COVID-19 Datastore.

Though, this study was completed before the emergence of the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 now dominating in the UK.