Friday 29 Mar 2024
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This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on July 26, 2021 - August 1, 2021

VACCINE DEVELOPMENTS

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine has found that two doses of the Pfizer vaccine is 88% effective in preventing symptomatic disease from the Delta variant of the coronavirus compared with 93.7% against the Alpha variant, broadly the same as previously reported. Meanwhile, two shots of the AstraZeneca vaccine is 67% effective against the Delta variant, up from 60% originally reported, and 74.5% effective against the Alpha variant, compared with the original estimate of 66% effectiveness.

An interval of eight to 10 weeks between doses of the Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE boosts the effectiveness of the two-shot regimen compared with a shorter interval, a study from the University of Oxford has found.

Sinopharm’s Covid-19 vaccine elicited weaker antibody responses against the Delta variant, based on the first published study of its effect against the more contagious version, Reuters reported. Antibody levels in people receiving Sinopharm’s BBIBP-CorV vaccine had a 1.38-fold reduction to the Delta variant versus an older version of the coronavirus first identified in Wuhan, a lab study based on samples from people in Sri Lanka showed.

Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE have inked a letter of intent with The Biovac Institute (Pty) Ltd — known as “Biovac”, a Cape Town-based, South African biopharmaceutical company — to manufacture the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for distribution within the African Union.

Phase 2 of the Construction Industry Vaccination Programme in Malaysia, which kicks off on Aug 5, will involve 55,000 construction workers in Penang and Johor. Works Minister Datuk Seri Fadillah Yusof said registration for the vaccination was opened on July 12, with 30,000 slots allocated for workers in Penang and 25,000 in Johor.

 

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