A COVID-19 vaccine has shown incredible results in more than 90% of infections in a study of thousands of volunteers.
This was announced in a statement by the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Pfizer, Albert Bourla, on Monday, November 9, 2020.
Since its detection in China in December 2019, the virus has killed over 1.2 million people globally. Below are eight things you need to know about the new vaccine.
- Pfizer and German partner BioNTech SE are the first drugmakers to show successful data from a large-scale clinical trial of a coronavirus vaccine.
- Pfizer expects to seek broad U.S. emergency use authorization of the vaccine for people aged 16 to 85. To do so, it will need to have collected two months of safety data on around half of the study’s roughly 44,000 participants, expected in late November.
- The COVID-19 vaccine is currently ongoing phase 3 trials.
- So far, no serious concerns have been found.
- If authorized, the number of vaccine doses will initially be limited.
- The vaccines has recorded 90% effectiveness against the disease.
- The Phase 3 Covid-19 vaccine trial provides the initial evidence of their vaccine’s ability to prevent Covid-19
- The interim analysis was conducted after 94 participants in the trial developed COVID-19, examining how many of them received the vaccine versus placebo.
This is a major victory in the fight against a pandemic that has killed over 1 million people, negatively impacted on the world’s economy and upended daily life.