Explainer-How does AstraZeneca’s vaccine compare with Pfizer-BioNTech? – By John Miller (Reuters) / Dec 30 2020
ZURICH (Reuters) – Britain on Wednesday became the first country to approve AstraZeneca and Oxford University’s home-grown UK COVID-19 vaccine, adding an easy-to-manage shot to the arsenal of a nation desperate for pandemic relief.
A medical worker shows a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at the Regional Military Specialty Hospital in San Nicolas de los Garza, on the outskirts of Monterrey, Mexico December 29, 2020. REUTERS/Daniel Becerril
Even so, scientists – and regulators in Europe, following the Brexit divorce – are sceptical, given confusion over trial results earlier that left experts questioning the robustness of the data.
HOW DOES THE ASTRAZENECA SHOT’S EFFICACY STACK UP TO OTHERS’?
The AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine’s efficacy in preventing symptomatic infections was 70.4%, according to interim data, after 30 of 5,807 people who got the two-dose vaccine developed COVID-19, compared with 101 of 5,829 people who got a placebo.
That compares with the 95% efficacy of the two-shot vaccine from Pfizer/BioNTech, the other vaccine approved in Britain.
