A single dose of Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccine can reduce the transmission of the coronavirus by almost half within the same household, where the risk of contagion is high, according to a study by the English public health agency.

And this, regardless of the age of the vaccinated person or the members of the household.

A single dose of Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccine can reduce the transmission of the coronavirus by up to almost half within a single household, where the risk of contagion is high, according to a study by the English public health agency (PHE ).

People infected with the virus three weeks after receiving a dose of the vaccine are 38% to 49% less likely than those who have not been vaccinated to pass the virus to members of their household, Public Health England said in a statement. .

This level of protection, observed around the fourteenth day after vaccination, is similar regardless of the age of the person vaccinated or of the members of the household.

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"Fantastic news"

"This is fantastic news. We already knew that vaccines save lives and this study, the most comprehensive conducted in real conditions, also shows that they reduce the transmission of this deadly virus," said the British minister. of Health Matt Hancock.

This study followed 57,000 people from 24,000 households where a vaccinated person tested positive, and compared them to nearly a million contacts of unvaccinated people.

Households are considered "high risk" places in terms of transmission, and "similar results could be seen in places with similar transmission risks, such as shared housing and prisons," PHE said.

10,400 deaths averted among those over 60 in the UK

The organization points out that one dose of the vaccine can also, after four weeks, reduce the risk of developing symptoms by 60 to 65%.

Previous PHE studies had shown that Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines had prevented 10,400 deaths in people over 60 years of age at the end of March.

The most bereaved country in Europe with more than 127,000 dead, the United Kingdom has been engaged in a mass vaccination campaign since the beginning of December, currently using the AstraZeneca, Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna vaccines.

According to official figures released on Tuesday, nearly 34 million first doses have been administered, and a quarter of the adult population, or 13.2 million people, have received a second dose.