The coronavirus variant first identified in South Africa may evade protection from the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to some extent, suggest real-world data from Israel. However, its prevalence in Israel is very low and the research is yet to be peer reviewed.

Researchers compared nearly 400 individuals who had confirmed COVID-19, 14 days or more after receiving one or two doses of the vaccine, with an equal number of patients with the disease who had not been vaccinated. The variant, B.1.351, constituted about 1% of all the COVID-19 cases across the study population. However, among those who had received two doses of the vaccine, the variant’s prevalence was eight times higher compared to the unvaccinated ones (5.4% vs. 0.7%). This indicates that the vaccine is less effective against the variant, compared with the original version of the virus and a variant first detected in Britain that constitutes almost all COVID-19 cases in Israel… (Reuters, April 11, 2021)