London: A third dose of Covid-19 vaccine can provide up to 88 per cent protection against hospitalisation from infection by the Omicron variant of coronavirus, according to early results from studies conducted in the UK.
The findings compiled in a report by the UK Health Security Agency (UKSHA) show significantly higher protection provided by third vaccine dose against the highly mutated variant first identified in Botswana and South Africa in November, compared to two doses.
Eric Topol, professor of molecular medicine and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in the US, noted that vaccine effectiveness dropped to 52 per cent against Omicron around six months after taking the second shot of a Covid-19 vaccine.
However, a booster dose substantially increased immunity and lowered the odds of being hospitalised with Covid-19 infection.
“That’s a big boost of protection. Vaccine effectiveness increased from 52 per cent (due to two dose waning after six months) to 88 per cent after the third dose,” Topol tweeted on Sunday.
The UKHSA report cited two studies that examined the association between both variant and vaccination status and risk of hospitalisation.
The first study is based on approximately half a million Omicron cases, and includes all age groups while the second one uses a smaller dataset and is restricted to ages 18 and over.
The first study confirms the previous finding of reduced overall risk of hospitalisation for Omicron compared to the Delta variant.
