Dikhyaa Mohanty 
Oxford-AstraZeneca (Covishield in India) and Pfizer vaccines to be highly effective against the COVID-19 variant first detected in India as per a study by the Public Health England (PHE).
According to the report, two doses of any of the vaccine will provide some degree of protection against the variant identified in Indian as they do against the UK variant of coronavirus.
The Public Health England (PHE) study further stated that both vaccines will help in preventing hospitalization and deaths. While the Pfizer vaccine was found to be 88% effective in preventing the disease from the India-detected variant two weeks after the second dose, it showed 93% effectiveness in combating the UK variant.
The study also found AstraZeneca to be 60% effective against the India-detected variant and 66% against the UK variant. The researchers observed that since the AstraZeneca vaccine’s second dose was rolled out in the UK and elsewhere much later than Pfizer’s, data showed it takes longer to reach maximum effectiveness vis-à-vis the former (or Covishield).
The researchers studied data from all age groups starting from 5 April, thus covering the period since the B.1.617 variant was first identified in India.
Dr Jamie Lopez Bernal, who is the lead author of the study and also a consultant medical epidemiologist at PHE stated that they have very much confidence in the data from the vaccine dose.
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