(Photo: AFP/VNA)

At least 1.4 million lives were saved in Europe due to safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines, the World Health Organization (WHO)’s European regional office said on Tuesday.

This was according to a new WHO study released on a preprint server analyzing the influence of COVID-19 vaccines in 34 countries - all but one - in Europe.

COVID-19 vaccines reduced deaths by 57 per cent between December 2020 when the vaccine rollouts began and March 2023, the study found.

The cumulative death toll in the European region, which currently sits at 2.5 million lives, could have reached nearly 4 million people without vaccines, the WHO said.

He recommended once again that people who are at risk for severe COVID-19, such as those who are older or immunocompromised, get a booster vaccination six to 12 months after their most recent dose.

The study estimated, in particular, that 96 per cent of those whose lives were saved due to vaccination were over the age of 60.

The estimations about the number of lives saved by the vaccines were done by back-calculating based on the number of deaths reported, estimations about the vaccines’ effectiveness, and what would have happened if people in certain age groups had not been vaccinated.