Professor Luke O’Neil from the School of Biochemistry and Immunology at Trinity College Dublin has said that new data shows both Pfizer and AstraZeneca jabs are effective against the Indian variant of Covid.
Speaking on Newstalk’s The Pat Kenny Show this morning, O’Neill discussed the latest study from the UK and said that while the vaccines are not as effective against the Indian strain compared to the previous strain of Covid, they are still effective in preventing severe disease.
The data released by Public Health England shows both Pfizer and AstraZeneca protect against symptomatic disease from the Indian variant - Pfizer found to be 88% effective, AstraZeneca found to be over 60% effective.
According to recent data from Pfizer, their vaccine is effective against 30 different variants across the world. Over 1 million Pfizer jabs have been given in Ireland so far.
O’Neill explained that those of us who were diagnosed with Covid before or who have received a vaccine for the previous strain of Covid-19 have antibodies that can fight the new Indian variant.
“The antibodies against the older ones still work against this one in a sense. Nobody has developed severe disease basically from this Indian variant if they have been vaccinated for the previous one.”
He said that even with antibodies, “you may catch the virus if it is a new variant but it won’t progress into severe disease,”
“That is the most important thing because as we always say, we don’t invent vaccines to stop you getting the sniffles, we invent them to stop you getting severe disease.”
