A 'monumental' step in our battle against coronavirus

The first study to describe vaccine effects in real-world communities shows clear reduction in the risk of hospitalisation from COVID-19.

Oxford vaccinologists, including Reuben Fellow Prof Teresa Lambe, were celebrating yesterday as news broke of a real-world study showing the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine to have up to 94% reduction in hospitalisation among recipients after their initial dose. The BioNtech/Pfizer vaccine also showed substantial hospitalisation reductions of up to 85%, with combined data showing that by the fourth week after receiving the initial vaccination, those aged 80 years and over had an 81% reduction in hospitalisation risk.

Reuben Fellow Teresa Lambe, who is a Principal Investigator based at the Jenner Institute in the Nuffield Department of Medicine, said, “When we first started this journey, we could only hope that a year later, real world data would show this level of impact from our vaccine against hospitalisation from severe illness. It is a huge day for us all, especially the team who've worked so hard, and monumental in our battle against coronavirus.”

The data were gathered as part of the EAVE II project, which uses patient data to track the pandemic and the vaccine roll out in real time, with researchers from the Universities of Edinburgh, Strathclyde, Aberdeen, Glasgow and St Andrew’s and Public Health Scotland (PHS) analysing a dataset covering the entire Scottish population of 5.4 million.

More than 17 million people in the UK have now received at least a first vaccine dose -- one-third of the UK's adult population.

Professor Andrew Pollard, chief investigator on the Oxford vaccine trial, said: “Vaccines work. We now need to make sure that everyone everywhere is protected.”

See also:

Related links: