Vaccine highly efficient against Delta variant with 92% for people aged 50-75, suggests study

Research in France has shown that vaccination is highly efficient at preventing severe cases of Covid-19, even against the Delta form. The study, which was released on Monday, looked at 22 million adults over the age of 50 and found that those who had had vaccinations were 90 per cent less likely to be hospitalised or die. The findings corroborate previous findings from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Israel, but experts claim this is the most extensive study of its sort to date.

The researchers compared the results of 11 million vaccinated persons against 11 million unvaccinated participants using data obtained beginning in December 2020, when France started its jab programme.
They established pairs by matching an unvaccinated person with a vaccinated counterpart from the exact location, age, and gender and followed them from the date of the vaccinated person's second injection until July 20.

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According to Epi-Phare, an independent medicines safety research group that collaborates closely with the French government, the risk of severe Covid in vaccinated individuals was decreased by 90 per cent 14 days following a second dose.

Vaccination appears to be almost as effective against the Delta form, with 84 per cent protection for those 75 and older and 92 per cent protection for those 50 to 75. That estimate, however, is based on only one month of data, as the variation only became prevalent in France in June.
 

"The research should be expanded to include data from August and September," Epi-chief, Phare's epidemiologist Mahmoud Zureik, told AFP.
The study included immunisation with Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, and AstraZeneca vaccines, but not Jannsen, which was approved much later and is considerably less commonly used in France.

The findings also show that vaccine protection against severe Covid did not deteriorate throughout the trial, which lasted up to five months.

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