Effectiveness of the WHO-Authorized COVID-19 Vaccines: A Rapid Review of Global Reports till 30 June 2021

Large clinical trials have proven the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine, and the number of studies about the effectiveness rapidly grew in the first half of the year after mass vaccination was administrated globally. This rapid review aims to provide evidence syntheses as a means to complement the current evidence on the vaccine effectiveness (VE) against various outcomes in real-world settings. Databases (PubMed, EMBASE, and MedRxiv) were searched up to 30 June 2021, (PROSPERO ID: 266866). A total of 39 studies were included, covering over 15 million participants from 11 nations. Among the general population being fully vaccinated, the VE against symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection was estimated at 89-97%, 92% (95% CI, 78-97%), and 94% (95% CI, 86-97%) for BNT162b2, ChAdOx1, and mRNA-1273, respectively. As for the protective effects against B.1.617.2-related symptomatic infection, the VE was 88% (95% CI, 85.3-90.1%) by BNT162b2 and 67.0% (95% CI, 61.3-71.8%) by ChAdOx1 after full vaccination. This review revealed a consistently high effectiveness of certain vaccines among the general population in real-world settings. However, scarce data on the major variants of SARS-CoV-2 and the shortness of the study time may limit the conclusions to the mRNA vaccines and ChAdOx1.