Coronavirus version discovered in the Republic of South Africa (South Africa) may somewhat “break through” through a vaccine against the COVID-19 joint production of American Pfizer and German Biontech. This is evidenced by the study of Israeli scientists, reports Reuters.
Specialists from the University of Tel Aviv compared 400 people with a positive result of the test on COVID-19 vaccinated by Pfizer vaccine, with the same number of unduccinated patients with this disease. According to the study, the South African type of coronavirus B.1.351 is about a percent of all cases of the disease among people studied.
However, among patients who received two doses of the vaccine, the prevalence of the South African type of coronavirus was eight times higher than that of non-immutded – 5.4 percent against 0.7 percent. This suggests that vaccine is less effective against the South African version of the virus, researchers noted.