One by one, how effective are coronavirus vaccines

Since December, the world has been carrying out an unprecedented vaccination campaign which could extend until 2023. Many countries are already vaccinating their populations against the coronavirus with the developments of the various laboratories. In this context, one of the first questions that arises revolves around which is efficiency of these serums to curb the disease.

As inevitable as the preference for vaccine that has published the highest percentage in its studies, these are not comparable figures and do not reflect well the risk that each individual has of contracting a inoculated. Experts insist that any of those approved are good and safe.

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The efficacy of each vaccine is represented by a percentage derived from the first results of phase III studies presented by each pharmacist. In these trials, participants are divided into two groups: one is inoculated with the drug and the other is a placebo. These are experiments with tens of thousands of people that are followed to see how many of them are infected with SARS-CoV-2. In this way, if 10% of the infected subjects were in the inoculated group and 90% in the placebo, it means that the vaccine is 90% effective.

Efficacy is the percentage described in clinical trials, a different concept from efficiency, which refers to the ability to stop disease in real populations, outside of controlled experiments conducted in healthy people. It will therefore always be less.

It is still early days to know exactly how effective each vaccine is in a real-world scenario and how well they prevent asymptomatic infections, but what preliminary results show is that all of those already in the roll-out have problems. very high percentages when it comes to avoiding serious illness. It is also not known how long the immunity provided, something that only time will tell.

The effectiveness of vaccines

In Argentina, at present, four vaccines are applied. The first to receive authorization was the Sputnik V, developed by the Russian laboratory Gamaleya, which showed an efficiency of 91.6%. The health ministry approved its “emergency” use at the end of December and the country became the first in Latin America to officially register it.

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In January, the National Administration for Drugs, Food and Medical Technology (ANMAT) approved the use of the vaccine developed by the University of Oxford / AstraZeneca, which has reached 76.0% effectiveness. In early February, the country also authorized “urgently” the Covishield, produced at the Serum Institute of India. AstraZeneca and Covishield are the same vaccine, so the percentage of effectiveness is the same.

Chinese vaccines have also found their way into the region. Sinopharm, 79% effective, It is applied in Argentina and also in countries like Peru, while Sinovac, which in trials conducted in Brazil has shown an efficacy of 50.7%, is administered in Uruguay and Chile, among others.

In the European Union, for the moment, four vaccines. The first approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) on December 21 was that of Pfizer and BioNTech, which is 95% effective in preventing COVID-19. On January 6, Moderna was cleared, which is 94.1% effective against the virus. On January 29, the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, which is the most widely used in the world, was authorized to market and this achieves an efficiency of 76%. Development Johnson & Johnson, which only requires a single dose, was found to be 72% effective in a clinical trial in the United States.

Here is the effectiveness of each vaccine:

1. NVX-CoV2373 (Novavax): 96.0%
2. Comirnaty (Pfizer / BioNTech): 95.0%
3. MRNA-1273 (modern): 94.1%
4. Sputnik V / Gam-Covid Vac (Gamaleya): 91.6%
5. BBIBP-CorV (Sinopharm): 79.0%
6. Covaxin (Bharat Biotech)): 78.0%
7. AZD1222 / Covishield (University of Oxford / AstraZeneca): 76.0%
8. Ad26.COV2.S (Johnson & Johnson): 72.0%
9. CoronaVac (Sinovac): 50.7%

Protection against the virus is important when studying the disease on a large scale, because if there is a significant portion of the population vaccinated with very effective remedies, infections will not be able to continue to spread. That’s what we call collective immunity. The researchers note that the percentages of all approved vaccines are sufficient to achieve this immunity if the majority of the population is inoculated.