The first dose of Pfizer Inc and BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine is 85% effective, a study of Israeli healthcare workers published in The Lancet here medical journal has found, writes Reuters.

The research was conducted on more than 7,000 healthcare workers who were vaccinated at the Sheba Medical Centre in Israel. Researchers saw an 85% reduction of symptomatic COVID-19 between 15 and 28 days after they were given the vaccine.

Overall infections, including among asymptomatic patients, were reduced by 75%.

Pfizer in an emailed statement said it was looking at real world data from Israel and other locations to understand the impact of its vaccine against COVID-19 arising from emerging variants.

The Lancet publication comes a day after Canadian researchers suggested that the second Pfizer dose be delayed given the high level of protection from the first shot in order to increase the number of people getting vaccinated.