Researchers “Still effective in preventing the progression of gastritis … Additional vaccinations are needed”
A study has found that Pfizer vaccine loses its power in front of the new mutant Omicron for COVID-19. This is the first time that Pfizer vaccine’s prophylactic effect on Omicron has been reported.
According to Bloomberg on the 7th local time, “The African Health Research Institute (AHRI) in South Africa said that if you were infected with Omicron in an experiment to measure the effectiveness of two doses of the Pfizer vaccine, you could have contracted the initial coronavirus, which was first detected in China at the end of 2019.” We confirmed the result that the neutralizing antibody decreased to 1 in 40 compared to the previous time.”
Neutralizing antibodies prevent the virus from penetrating into cells, forming immunity.
This means that the vaccine’s anti-infection effectiveness against Omicron drops to 1 in 40.
However, the researchers recommended a booster vaccination, saying the vaccine is still effective in preventing gastric and severe progression.
AHRI Director Alex Segal said the loss of immunity from the Pfizer vaccine against the omicron mutation was “strong but not complete”.
He explained that “the number of cases in which the virus breaks through immunity (breakthrough infection) will increase,” he explained.
“People who have not been vaccinated should be vaccinated, and those who have been infected before should also be vaccinated,” he said.
However, AHRI said that this study was only early results and assumed that the results of the study on the exact level of vaccine avoidance of omicron mutations could change.
Earlier, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that Omicron could increase the contagiousness of COVID-19 and cause a serious epidemic.
Since Omicron was first reported in South Africa on the 25th of last month, more than 450 researchers around the world have been conducting similar studies.
