Experts suggest three jabs of Covid-19 vaccine beneficial than two
California, February 15: The majority of Covid-19 vaccines available include two doses. After the second dose, people are said to become more capable of combating the virus. However, a recent Kaiser Permanente study revealed that one month after a third dose, the effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine was higher for preventing infection and hospitalisation than 2 jabs of the vaccine after one month.
The study has been published in 'The Lancet Regional Health - Americas' journal.
"When we studied the effectiveness of the 2 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine versus 3 doses, we see a benefit with 3 doses that exceed that achieved with 2 doses alone," stated Sara Y. Tartof, PhD, an epidemiologist with the Kaiser Permanente Southern California Department of Research and Evaluation, and a member of the faculty of the Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine, both in Pasadena.
This research studies the primary series of two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccination effectiveness against infection, hospitalisation and death up to 8 months after vaccination, and also evaluated the effectiveness of three doses of the vaccine up to three months after vaccination.
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To assess effectiveness, the team of researchers evaluated the electronic health records of 3.1 million members of Kaiser Permanente in Southern California from December 14, 2020, to December 5, 2021. During the research, 197,535 (6.3 percent) patients were infected with the coronavirus and of those, 15,786 (8 percent) were hospitalised due to the infection. Notably, during the study period, the predominant variant was delta, not omicron.
Two-dose vaccine effectiveness against the Covid declined from 85 percent during the first month after vaccination to 49 percent up to 8 months following vaccination.
Meanwhile, two-dose vaccine effectiveness against hospitalisation remained high (90 percent) throughout the 8 months and did not dip, except among people who were 75 years of age and older, or who had compromised immunity.
Immunocompromised patients had a 74 percent risk of being admitted to the hospital, while those 75 and older had a risk of 77 percent chance.
Within the first three months after vaccination, the 3-dose vaccine was 88% effective against infection and 97% effective against hospitalisation.
"What we observe from this research is that a third dose to avoid serious disease has a significant public health impact," Tartof said, adding "Importantly, all studies that have evaluated the vaccine effectiveness of a third dose -- including ours -- have shown a meaningful improvement in vaccine effectiveness against a broad range of SARS-CoV-2 outcomes."
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-PTC News
