The researchers in UK after conducting a study based on the info from around million app users comparing self-reported vaccinated participants with non-vaccinated participates made significant conclusions about the efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines which wanes within six months.
Research study conducted by Zoe LTD on efficacy of Covid vaccines
This study was conducted by ZOE Ltd. The company was founded three years ago to offer customized nutritional advice based on test kits. The company’s ZOE COVID Symptom Study app is a not-for-profit initiative in collaboration with King’s College London and funded by the Department of Health and Social Care.
According to their findings, protection against COVID-19 offered by two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech and the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines begins to wane within six months. this has underscored the need for booster shots.
Read more: COVID-19 vaccines finally here: What’s next though?
Britain, US and European countries campaigning for booster shots
Britain and other European nations are planning to conduct COVID-19 vaccine booster campaign this year after top vaccine advisers and researchers explicated that the need for third shots especially for the elderly and vulnerable will be necessary.
“It’s bringing into focus this need for some action. We can’t just sit by and see the protectiveness slowly waning whilst cases are still high and the chance of infection still high as well,” Tim Spector, ZOE Ltd co-founder and principal investigator for the study told BBC television.
Spector added that under a worst-case future scenario, protection could fall below 50% for older people and healthcare workers by the winter.
The U.S. government is preparing to provide third booster doses starting in mid-September to Americans who had their initial course more than eight months ago.
Data by Zoe Symptom Covid app on fading efficacy of Pfizer and Astrazeneca
After five to six months, the effectiveness of the Pfizer jab at preventing COVID-19 infection in the month after the second dose fell from 88% to 74%, an analysis of data collected in Britain’s ZOE COVID study showed.
For the AstraZeneca vaccine, effectiveness fell from 77% to 67% after four to five months.
A rise in vaccinated people becoming infected with coronavirus has cast doubt over the lasting efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines, according to new studies https://t.co/0LWYoGOYFj
— Financial Times (@FinancialTimes) August 19, 2021
The study authors further expounded that they still require more data is needed in younger people because participants who had their shots up to six months ago tended to be elderly as that age group was prioritized when the shots were first approved, the study authors said.
Read more: Rich nations profiting from Covid: Where are their morals?
Covid-19 vaccines are not the ultimate cure say independent researchers
Simon Clarke, Associate Professor in Cellular Microbiology at the University of Reading, though not involved in this research study said “This is a reminder that we cannot rely on vaccines alone to prevent the spread of COVID,” He cautioned that the results may have been distorted by the surge in overall cases in Britain in July.
A separate British public health study found last week that protection from either the Pfizer-BioNTech or the AstraZeneca vaccine against the now prevalent Delta variant of the coronavirus weakens within three months.
Read more: COVID Delta arrives China to haunt Wuhan under lockdown
The Oxford University study found at the time that 90 days after a second shot of the Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccine, their efficacy in preventing infections had slipped to 75% and 61% respectively. That was down from 85% and 68%, respectively, seen two weeks after a second dose.