Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine provides full protection against severe disease and keeps people out of hospital more than 22 days after the first dose, according to the analysis of phase three clinical trial results carried out with over 17 thousand participants from the UK, Brazil and South Africa.

According to AstraZeneca‘s announcement this Wednesday, the results showed vaccine efficacy of 76% after a first dose, with protection maintained to the second dose. With an inter-dose interval of 12 weeks or more, vaccine efficacy increased to 82%.

“This primary analysis reconfirms that our vaccine prevents severe disease and keeps people out of hospital. In addition, extending the dosing interval not only boosts the vaccine’s efficacy, but also enables more people to be vaccinated upfront,” said Mene Pangalos, executive vice president of biopharmaceuticals research and development at AstraZeneca.

“Together with the new findings on reduced transmission, we believe this vaccine will have a real impact on the pandemic.”

Tests also allowed the pharmaceutical to detect the potential for the vaccine to reduce asymptomatic transmission: data showed that PCR positive readings were reduced by 67% after a single dose, and 50% after the two-dose regimen.