Vaccine Efficacy
Vaccine efficacy or vaccine effectiveness is the percentage reduction of disease cases in a vaccinated group of people compared to an unvaccinated group. For example, a vaccine efficacy or effectiveness of 80% indicates an 80% decrease in the number of disease cases among a group of vaccinated people compared to a group in which nobody was vaccinated. When a study is carried out using the most favorable, ideal or perfectly controlled conditions, such as those in a clinical trial, the term "vaccine efficacy" is used. On the other hand, when a study is carried out to show how well a vaccine works when they are used in a bigger, typical population under less-than-perfectly controlled conditions, the term "vaccine effectiveness" is used. Vaccine efficacy was designed and calculated by Greenwood and Yule in 1915 for the cholera and typhoid vaccines. It is best measured using double-blind, randomized, clinical controlled trials, such that it is studied under "best case scenarios."
