Some much-needed good news on the vaccine front.
Pfizer-BioNTech has confirmed its vaccine is ‘effective’ on new variants of the Covid-19 virus.
It said that it is almost entirely as effective when dealing with the new variants of the virus, often referred to as the UK strain and the South Africa strain.
In a statement, the two companies said the “small differences” detected in tests comparing the original virus and the recent versions “are unlikely to lead to a significant reduction in the effectiveness of the vaccine”.
However, its findings are believed to be limited because it does not look at the full set of mutations found in the new South African variant.
Pfizer and BioNTech also said that both companies are prepared to respond with a potential new vaccine if a variant of SARS-CoV-2 shows evidence of escaping immunity by the Covid-19 vaccine.
Ireland has administered more of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine than any other.
While Ireland has faced a “real setback”, with regards to the vaccine rollout, Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly has defended his prediction that every adult in Ireland would be offered by a vaccination by September of this year.
Speaking on Wednesday night, Leo Varadkar also said that this prediction still has a high probability of happening.
50,000 people are expected to vaccinated in Ireland this week.
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