The ongoing Phase 3 clinical trial of Pfizer/BioNTech's coronavirus vaccine confirms its protection remains high for at least six months after the second dose.
The study also found the vaccine was 100% effective against the variant first discovered in South Africa. The variant study involved just 800 participants.
It's the first look at how long protection for a coronavirus vaccine lasts, and while six months is a modest target, it's longer than the 90 days of protection been the best estimate offered to date.
The vaccine remains more than 91 percent effective against disease with any symptoms for six months, the companies said. And it appeared to be fully effective against the worrying B.1.351 variant of the virus, which is the dominant strain circulating in South Africa and which researchers feared had evolved to evade the protection of vaccines, the companies said.
"The vaccine was 100 percent effective against severe disease as defined by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and 95.3 percent effective against severe COVID-19 as defined by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)," Pfizer and BioNTech said in a joint statement.
On Wednesday, the companies said a small trial of volunteers aged12 to 15 showed 100 percent efficacy in that age group.
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