HOW COVID VACCINES WORK AGAINST THE DELTA VARIANT

Previous data released by British health authorities at the end of May come to similar conclusions for less serious forms of the illness.The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is 88 percent effective against symptomatic COVID-19 caused by the Delta variant two weeks after the second dose, while the jab is 93 percent effective for cases caused by the Alpha variant.AstraZeneca shows the efficacy of 60 percent against cases caused by the Delta variant and 66 percent in the case of Alpha.Scottish authorities published similar data on Monday in The Lancet.Meanwhile, the team behind the Sputnik V jab tweeted on Tuesday that their vaccine was “more efficient against the Delta variant … than any other vaccine that published results on this strain so far”. They did not publish results but said the study by the Gamaleya Center, a Russian research institute, had been submitted for publication in an international peer-reviewed journal.

Is one shot enough?

Of the available vaccines, only the Johnson & Johnson offering requires one dose – rather than two – to reach effectiveness. So far, there are not enough data to determine how it works against the Delta variant.As for the other jabs, lab and real-world tests conclude that one dose of any vaccine gives only limited protection against the Delta variant.“After a single dose of Pfizer-BioNTech, 79 percent of people had a quantifiable neutralising antibody response against the original strain, but this fell to … 32 percent for B.1.617.2 [Delta],” said the lab study from June.The Pasteur Institute found that a single dose of AstraZeneca would have “little to no efficacy” against the Delta variant.Data from the British government confirms the tendency in real-world scenarios: both vaccines were 33 percent effective against symptomatic cases caused by Delta three weeks after the first dose compared with about 50 percent effectiveness against the Alpha variant.In the UK – where the Delta variant is now responsible for 96 percent of new cases – these findings pushed the government on Monday to reduce the waiting period between doses from 12 weeks to eight for people aged above 40.In France, the wait has been reduced to three weeks from five for a second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines.The Pfizer-BioNTech jab does however offer very high (94 percent) protection against hospitalisation due to the Delta variant after one dose.

So what is the best strategy against the Delta strain?

Scientists agree that the best defence against the Delta variant is to get a full two-dose vaccination.Top French scientist Jean-François Delfraissy says creating a “block of vaccinated people” will help keep the Delta variant from spreading throughout the population.A US study from June 10 points to the importance of vaccination to keeping the list of variants from growing.“Increasing the proportion of the population immunised with current safe and effective authorised vaccines remains a key strategy to minimise the emergence of new variants and end the COVID-19 pandemic,” it says.Antoine Flahault, who heads up the University of Geneva’s Institute of Global Health, insists it is still crucial to observe social distancing, share infection information, and observe restrictions when necessary to “keep virus circulation low”.The more the virus circulates, he says, the more opportunity it has to mutate and generate new variations.SOURCE: NIGERIA FASHION MAGAZINE AND NEWS AGENCIES