Efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines by race and ethnicity

Objectives
Vaccine uptake amongst ethnic minority populations has been persistently lower which may be due to socioeconomic factors such as health literacy, health insurance status. this review aimed to assess to what extent COVID-19 clinical trials have considered the impact of race and ethnicity on COVID-19 vaccine safety and efficacy.

Study design
Systematic review.

Methods
Data regarding ethnicity in COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials was systematically reviewed according to PRISMA guidelines in this systematic review, which ran from inception until June 2021. three international databases: PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science (WoS) were used to conduct systematic article searches. Only two studies reported vaccine efficacy among ethnic minority groups.

Results
The efficacy of the mRNA-1273 vaccine was confirmed to be 95% in Caucasians and 97.5 percent in ‘people of colour’ in a study by Baden et al, In another study by Polack et al, BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine efficacy was reported to be 95.2 percent in Caucasians, 100 percent in Afro-Caribbean or African Americans, 94.2 percent in Hispanic or Latinx, and 95.4 percent in non-Hispanic, non-Latinx people.

Conclusions
Given the highly differing effect of COVID-19 upon the Afro-Caribbean, Hispanic and south Asian populations, it is imperative for COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials to thoroughly assess the safety and efficacy of vaccines in different ethnicities, and if necessary, develop ethnicity-specific protocols which can minimize the disproportionate effect of COVID-19 on ethnic minority populations.