The variant of Wuhan pneumonia (novel coronavirus disease, COVID-19) in India is much more contagious, making the local outbreak in India completely out of control, but the U.K. Department of Public Health found that two complete doses of Pfizer or AZ vaccine can be effective against this variant of the virus.
According to Reuters, a study by the UK Department of Health found that after 14 days of the second dose of Pfizer, the effectiveness of the vaccine against the Indian B.1.617.2 variant was 88% and the protection rate against the British B.1.1.7 variant was as high as 93%.
In addition, two doses of AZ vaccine were 60% effective against the Indian variant and 66% effective against the British variant. In contrast, if the first dose of the vaccine is administered without the second dose, the two vaccines are only 33% effective against the Indian variant and 50% effective against the British variant after 3 weeks.
UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock said this means that the 2-dose vaccine is crucial in preventing the outbreak and he is confident that the UK can continue to move forward with the vaccination program.
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