Vaccines prevented more than 2.5 million deaths from SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind Covid-19 infections, worldwide, according to a study.

The study, led by researchers from the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Italy, showed that one Covid death was avoided for every 5,400 doses of vaccine administered.

Some 82 per cent of the lives saved by vaccines involved people vaccinated before encountering the virus, 57 per cent during the Omicron period, and 90 per cent involved people aged 60 years and older.