Vaccines Effective in Preventing Symptomatic COVID-19 in Health Care Workers

In HealthDay News, OBGYN & Women's Health
by Healthday

Findings seen even for those at risk for severe disease and racial and ethnic groups disproportionately affected by the pandemic

MONDAY, Sept. 27, 2021 (HealthDay News) — COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective under real-world conditions in preventing symptomatic disease in health care personnel, according to a study published online Sept. 22 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Tamara Pilishvili, Ph.D., from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, and colleagues assessed the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines in a real-world setting using data from 1,482 case participants and 3,449 controls.

The researchers found that for partial vaccination, vaccine effectiveness was 77.6 percent for Pfizer-BioNTech (BNT162b2) and 88.9 percent for Moderna (mRNA-1273), whereas for complete vaccination, vaccine effectiveness was 88.8 and 96.3 percent, respectively. Effectiveness was similar regardless of age (<50 years or ≥50 years), race and ethnic group, presence of underlying conditions, and level of patient contact.

“In this population of health care personnel, vaccine effectiveness was similar among persons with underlying medical conditions or other risk factors for severe COVID-19, including pregnancy; in different subgroups of health care personnel defined according to job category; and in racial and ethnic groups that have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic,” the authors write.

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