The Covid vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca is nearly as effective against the Kent variant as it is against older forms of the virus, according to preliminary research results.
Researchers analysed swabs from trial volunteers who developed asymptomatic or symptomatic infections to determine which variant of the virus they had caught after receiving the vaccine or a control jab.
In a preprint under review at the Lancet, the scientists reported that levels of neutralising antibodies – those that wipe out the virus – were nine times lower in vaccinated people who caught the Kent variant, named B117, compared with those who contracted older variants.
But the reduced antibody response was associated with only slightly lower protection against symptomatic infections with the Kent variant, the scientists said. Among the small number of people included in the study, vaccine efficacy fell from an average of 84% against older variants to 75% against the Kent variant.
Despite the fall, the protection against what is now the dominant variant in the UK remains substantially above the 50% threshold the World Health Organization set as the pandemic took hold.
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