A new study has found that a third dose of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is more effective in reducing severe COVID-19 symptoms compared to people who have received two doses.
The research, published in The Lancet journal, shows that individuals who received three doses of Pfizer’s vaccine (7 days or more after the third dose) had 92% lower risk of severe COVID-19 attack and 81% lower risk of COVID-related death compared to those who completed two doses five months ago.
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“These results show convincingly that the third dose of the vaccine is highly effective against severe Covid-19 related outcomes in different age groups and population subgroups, one week after the third dose,” said Ran Balicer of Clalit Research Institute in Israel.
“These data should facilitate informed policy decision-making,” he added.
The research team reviewed data provided by 7,28,321 individuals aged 12 or above who had received the third dose of the BNT162b2 vaccine, IANS reported. They were carefully matched 1:1 with 7,28,321 individuals who received only two shots of the same vaccine at least five months ago.
The matching was based on an extensive set of attributes linked with risk of infection, severe disease, health status.
There were multiple analyses conducted to ensure that estimation of vaccine effectiveness was robust to potential biases.
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