Ljubljana - Vaccination against Covid-19 significantly reduces the risk of being hospitalised due to Covid-19, shows research in which Slovenian epidemiologists studied the effectiveness of vaccination against severe Covid-19 using real-world data. The results have been published on the website of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).

Slovenia's National Institute of Public Health (NIJZ) based the research on real-world surveillance data about the country's weekly numbers of Covid-19 cases admitted to hospitals, vaccination status of all individuals vaccinated in the country, and hospitalised coronavirus patients.

It was carried out in October 2021, when the Delta variant of the coronavirus was prevalent, and focused on three age groups: 18-49, 50-64 and over 65.

The epidemiologists compared the data about severe Covid-19 in unvaccinated persons and fully vaccinated persons with either mRNK and viral vector vaccines.

They have found that vaccination was 86% effective in the first group regardless of which vaccine they received, while the figures were 89% and 77% for the second and third groups.

The epidemiologists have also found differences in effectiveness of protection of vaccinated persons against hospitalisation between the mRNK and viral vector vaccines.

The mRNK vaccines were 92% effective in the 18-49 group, 93% in the 50-64 group and 79% for over 65s, which compares to 76%, 82% and 61% for viral vector vaccines.

However, effectiveness decreases over time, particularly in over 65s, which is why reason the epidemiologists find it important for the elderly to receive a booster shot as soon as possible - six months after the basic vaccination, or even sooner.

The results of the research are published on the website of Eurosurveillance, a journal on infectious disease surveillance, epidemiology, prevention and control which is part of the ECDC.