By Antonella Macerollo
For August 2021, we have selected two papers:
Bernal J.L. et al. Effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines on covid-19 related symptoms, hospital admissions, and mortality in older adults in England: test negative case-control study. BMJ. 2021 May 13;373:n1088. doi: 10.1136/bmj.n1088.
Haas E. J. et al. Impact and effectiveness of mRNA BNT162b2 vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 infections and COVID-19 cases, hospitalisations, and deaths following a nationwide vaccination campaign in Israel: an observational study using national surveillance data. Lancet. 2021 May 15;397(10287):1819-1829.
Our COVID-19 papers of the month investigated the effectiveness of the Covid-19 vaccines in England and Israel, respectively.
Bernal et al. presented a test negative case-control study on the effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech BNT162b2 and Oxford-AstraZeneca ChAdOx1-S vaccines on 156,930 adults (aged 70 years and older) who reported symptoms of COVID-19 between 8 December 2020 and 19 February 2021 and were successfully linked to vaccination data in the National Immunisation Management System in England. This study’s primary outcomes were polymerase chain reaction confirmed symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections, admissions to hospital for COVID-19, and deaths with COVID-19.
Haas et al. used national surveillance data from the first four months of the nationwide vaccination campaign launched in Israel to ascertain incident cases of laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infections and outcomes, as well as vaccine uptake in residents of Israel aged 16 years and older. Vaccine effectiveness against SARS-CoV-2 outcomes (asymptomatic infection, symptomatic infection, and COVID-19-related hospitalisation, severe or critical hospitalisation, and death) was calculated on the basis of incidence rates in fully vaccinated individuals compared with rates in unvaccinated individuals. The proportion of spike gene target failures on PCR test among a nationwide convenience-sample of SARS-CoV-2-positive specimens was used to estimate the prevalence of the B.1.1.7 variant.
The two papers of the month found consistent results. Indeed, Bernal et al. found that vaccination with either one dose of BNT162b2 or ChAdOx1-S was associated with a significant reduction in symptomatic COVID-19 in older adults, and with further protection against severe disease. Both vaccines showed similar effects. Protection was maintained for the duration of follow-up (>6 weeks). A second dose of BNT162b2 was associated with further protection against symptomatic disease. A clear effect of the vaccines against the B.1.1.7 variant was found.
Similarly, Haas et al. showed that two doses of BNT162b2 were highly effective across all age groups (≥16 years, including older adults aged ≥85 years) in preventing symptomatic and asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections and COVID-19-related hospitalisations, severe disease, and death, including those caused by the B.1.1.7 SARS-CoV-2 variant. There were marked and sustained declines in SARS-CoV-2 incidence corresponding to increasing vaccine coverage.
These studies strongly suggested that COVID-19 vaccination can help to control the pandemic, including B.1.1.7 SARS-CoV-2 variant-related pandemic waves.
