Moderna vaccine more effective than Pfizer vaccine against Delta: Study

Coronavirus vaccine from Moderna is more effective against the Delta variant compared to the vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech, according to reports posted on medRxiv.

In a study of more than 50,000 patients in the Mayo Clinic Health System, it was found that in July the effectiveness of Moderna’s vaccine had dropped to 76% from 86% in early 2021. On the other hand, the effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine had dropped to 42% in July from 76%.

Reuters reported that Dr. Venky Soundararajan of Massachusetts data analytics company, who led the Mayo study said that even though both vaccines are capable of preventing COVID hospitalization, a Moderna booster shot may be necessary soon.

In an another study, elderly nursing home residents in Ontario showed higher resistance to variants after taking Moderna vaccine as compared to Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.

Anne-Claude Gingras of the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute in Toronto said the elderly may need higher vaccine doses, boosters, and other preventative measures.

New data suggests that people who were fully vaccinated by Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine five or more months ago are more likely to test positive for COVID-19 than people who were fully vaccinated less than five months ago.

Patients who are older than 60 are almost three times more vulnerable of getting infected when at least 146 days had passed since the second dose.

(With inputs from Reuters)

Picture Credits: Reuters