The evidence is unequivocal: vaccines work, are incredibly safe and reduce individual risk

Yesterday, our Discovery Health analytics team released data on the protective effects of COVID?19 vaccination and the low risk of vaccine-related adverse events. This follows a massive analysis of millions of data points across the comprehensive wellness, health and vaccine data encompassing 2,1m adult members, administered by Discovery Health.

The evidence is unequivocal: vaccines work, are incredibly safe and reduce individual risk; and represent the most reliable route to fast-tracking our return to normality. There have been no recorded vaccine-related deaths in Discovery Health administered members.

The data represents the largest study of its kind in South Africa on COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness, and is also one of the only studies of this scale across the world during an outbreak of the Delta variant of the SARS-CoV2 virus.?

First, the research provides relevant real-world insights into the highly effective protection that the Pfizer-BioNtech (Pfizer) vaccine confers against admission and death from COVID-19, specifically during an outbreak of the delta variant:

1.????Relative to those fully vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine, the unvaccinated population has a 20 times higher risk of dying from COVID-19 related complications and five times higher risk of infection.

a.????The Pfizer vaccine is 94% effective in protecting against COVID-19 mortality risk from 14 days after dose two.

b.????The Pfizer vaccine is 92% effective against COVID-19 admission risk from 14 days after dose two.

2.????We’ve recorded no vaccine-related deaths in the Discovery Health administered scheme members.

3.????We see no waning in vaccine effectiveness in protecting against COVID-19 admission and death, in the three-month data interval following the second dose (4,5 months after the first dose).

Second, for those who had a prior COVID-19 infection and vaccination, the research demonstrates the power of hybrid immunity, or so-called “super immunity”:

-?For people who have both recovered from COVID-19 and are fully vaccinated (Pfizer two-dose vaccine), there is a 98% drop in the risk of admission to hospital for COVID-19 complications.?

Third, we show that within the Discovery Health client base, the risk of experiencing any adverse event following vaccination is low. And even more importantly, the risk of a severe adverse event is extremely low - in fact, rare.

-??Importantly, the absolute risk of a severe adverse event following vaccination for COVID-19 with either the Pfizer or Johnson & Johnson (J&J) COVID-19 vaccine is significantly lower than the risk of complications following infection with COVID-19.

Our rigorous analysis included 1,207,760 vaccinated scheme members and is representative of all South Africans. All in all, the risk-benefit consideration of being vaccinated against COVID-19 is undoubtedly strongly in favour of?vaccination.

Our Discovery Health Insights’ team collaborated with leading scientists and clinicians to deploy global best-practice methodologies in the research undertaken, that we are reporting on herewith.?I want to thank key members of this team (Dr Dave Jacobs, Ismail Rasool,?Shirley Collie, Jared Champion, Tommy Chen, Matthew Zylstra and Lizelle Steenkamp)?for their dedication, passion and excellent work on this front.

Following yesterday’s release of our research conclusions, I have received relevant queries about whether Discovery Health has conducted similar research into the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccine. We welcome this interest from all stakeholders. Earlier this year, Discovery Health partnered with the SA Medical Research Council (SAMRC) to carry out research on the J&J vaccine’s safety and effectiveness in the just under 480?000 local healthcare workers who received the single-dose J&J vaccine. A preliminary report was released by the Minister of Health, confirming that the J&J vaccine is extremely safe and highly effective in protecting against severe COVID-19 illness and death. The SAMRC will be publishing updated research shortly and we are still actively supporting their leading scientific team in this regard. I will post this updated research as soon as it becomes available.?

For more detail on our research and findings:

-??I encourage you to visit our Discovery Health Insights hub to read our three in-depth write ups on each of the three above-mentioned study areas.

-??We also issued a press release summarising our findings to the media, which is available to the public.?