Cape Town - Receiving just a single Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine jab helps protect against hospitalisation by up to 90%, while the second dose guards against symptomatic infection.
So said Professor Tulio de Oliveira while on Thursday unpacking how the Delta variant behaves, saying the vaccine was proven – the world over – to be effective against the strain.
De Oliveira is the director at the KZN Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform (KRISP), and Professor of Bioinformatics at the School for Data Science and Computational Thinking at Stellenbosch University.
He has worked for more than 20 years with viral outbreaks, including HIV, Hepatitis B and C, Chikungunya, Dengue, Sars-CoV-2, Zika, and Yellow Fever virus.
He currently coordinates a network of genomic surveillance in South Africa.
Speaking with the Cape Times live on Facebook on Thursday, De Oliveira said that, at the moment, evidence from around the world shows that the Delta variant does not cause “worst disease outcomes”, however, the problem creeps in when large groups of people are admitted to hospitals, thereby putting pressure on the health care system.
De Oliveira said the vaccines were found, the world over, to work against the Delta variant.
“The answer is very simple. Yes, the vaccines work against that variant. They even work better, or what it means is, they are more effective against the Delta variant than the previous variants that caused the second wave – the Beta variant.
“So, how do we know that?
“One thing is that, at the moment, close to 90% of infections in the world are caused by the Delta variant.
“It's not only dominating South Africa, it's also dominating in other countries in Africa, in Europe, in Asia, and in North America.
“So we know from a lot of other countries that have led vaccination programmes, which are also dominated by the Delta variant, the effectiveness of the vaccine.
“Even with one dose of, for example, the Pfizer, one of the vaccines that we are using in South Africa, or the Johnson & Johnson, which is a single dose, we know that it will protect from hospitalisation, by about 90 percent.
“So it’s very effective, the vaccine, even with only the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine.
“What we also know with the Pfizer vaccine, after the second dose, is we are also protected against symptomatic infection, which means also protecting people from developing any symptoms.
“It’s very important that we scale vaccination in the country, and I know that the Western Cape is doing a good job,” said De Oliveira.
De Oliveira noted that the Western Cape has maintained an increase in infections recently, and they will be monitoring to see whether it will stabilise or decrease.
He encouraged physical and social distancing, saying the recent unrest in parts of the country has also upset vaccination efforts.
The Delta variant was indeed also more transmissible, De Oliveira said.
“It is at least twice more transmissible than the original virus lineages that started the pandemic.
“We are busy calculating but, at the moment, we assume that it is at least 60% or 70% more transmissible than the Beta variant – the one that caused our second wave.
De Oliveira said the virus remained a pneumonia virus.
Cape Times