Single dose of Pfizer is 85% effective

RESEARCHERS have found a single dose of the Pfizer shot – the first vaccine brought into use in Spain to combat the Covid-19 pandemic – is 85% effective.

The medical study will fuel the debate over the two-dose recommendation for the jab as governments grapple with supply shortages across the European Union and the call for rich countries to donated vaccines to poorer neighbours.

Health workers at the Sheba Medical Centre in Israel carried out the research, the findings published in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet; comparing the 95% efficacy achieved with two shots 21 days apart, as recommended by Pfizer-BioNtech.

The news was announced a day after scientists in Canada suggested delaying the second dose of Pfizer in order to increase the number of people being protected and receiving a vaccination.

Meanwhile, Pfizer scientists have launched an international study involving 4,000 volunteers to evaluate the safety and efficacy of the Covid vaccine in heathy pregnant women.

Results are expected in the fourth quarter of 2021; it has been found pregnant women are at a higher risk of developing the coronavirus.