Study data on Pfizer s vaccine resistance to South African variant
In the first study of its kind to examine the real-world effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine in protecting against the COVID-19 variant originating in South Africa, researchers have found that the South African variant is significantly more likely to break through the protective effect of two doses of the vaccine compared to the British COVID-19 variant.
The researchers say that at this stage, the exact reduction in effectiveness cannot be accurately assessed from these data but estimate that the vaccine remains protective against this variant, notwithstanding, that the South African variant has not spread widely, and remains very rare in Israel.