A new COVID-19 vaccine comparative study has demonstrated Sinopharm’s efficiency in significantly reducing hospitalization and intensive care unit (ICU) admissions among patients.
The study, conducted in Abu Dhabi and published in the Nature scientific journal, showed 79% efficacy against hospitalizations and 86% against ICU admissions, as less than 3% of vaccinated patients with one or more co-morbidities succumbed to the disease.
Nearly two million residents were part of the study, all having received two doses of Sinopharm vaccine before July 1, 2021, and more than one million non-vaccinated individuals were also included for comparative purposes.
The median age of vaccinated individuals was 35 years, compared with 34 years for non-vaccinated individuals.
The same proportion of females was observed among vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals, namely 36%.
With regard to gender, “the study showed that the vaccine is more effective in preventing hospitalization in females (82.3%), as compared to males (74.5%), which is supported by another study on inactivated CoronaVac vaccine,” said the report.
Yet, males were more protected against critical care admission, while no significant sex differences in mortality were found.
People over 60 years of age represented 3.8% of vaccinated individuals, compared to 5.6% of non-vaccinated individuals.
The results of the study indicate that the efficacy of a double dose of Sinopharm vaccine against hospitalizations is significantly high, while vaccine efficacy against death was 84%.
For those with one or more comorbidities, the protection against death with both doses of the Sinopharm vaccine was 97%.
In addition, the study showed that the efficiency of a double dose of Sinopharm vaccine against severe COVID-19 cases decreased after one year.
This was due to immune escape from the new variants, which underlines the importance of booster doses to increase protection against severe COVID-19 infections.
The study included a large, comprehensive data set, which covers the entire population of Abu Dhabi, the largest emirate in the UAE.
The data were matched for age, sex, comorbidities, ethnicity, and the month of observation, in order to standardize the comparison and avoid potential confounding factors.
The data used provided a long follow-up period reaching almost 12 months. These allowed the researchers to estimate, with great precision, the overall effectiveness, the effectiveness across different risk factors, and the waning of effectiveness over time.
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