UPDATED 9.06PM | Two doses of Pfizer-BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine appear to have given 70 percent protection against hospitalisation in South Africa in recent weeks, according to a major real-world study which suggests weaker efficacy against the new Omicron variant.

The study released on Tuesday by South Africa's largest private health insurance administrator, Discovery Health, was based on more than 211,000 positive Covid-19 test results. Around 78,000 of those results from Nov 15 to Dec 7 were attributed to Omicron...