According to the interim results of the phase 3 trial, the vaccine to prevent Covid-19 infections developed by the pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and BioNTech would be “90% effective”.
- The vaccine candidate developed by Pfizer and BioNtech in a phase 3 clinical trial would be 90% effective
- The race for a vaccine to stem the Covid-19 epidemic is fierce with 10 clinical trials underway
A new step in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic. While at the end of October, Russia announced that its Sputnik V vaccine was entering the final phase of clinical trials, it may be the Americans who will draw their vaccine first.
This Monday, November 9, the American pharmaceutical company Pfizer and its German counterpart BioNTech announced that they had jointly developed a vaccine “90% effective”. These results come from the first interim analysis of their still ongoing phase 3 trial. This is the final phase of testing before applying for approval.
“More than eight months into the worst pandemic in more than a century, we believe this milestone represents a significant step forward for the world in our battle against Covid-19.”Pfizer Chairman and CEO Albert Bourla said in a statement, adding that “the first set of results from our phase 3 Covid-19 vaccine trial provides initial evidence of our vaccine’s ability to prevent Covid-19”.
50 million doses available by the end of 2020
According to the preliminary results communicated by Pfizer and BioNTech, the protection of patients against Covid-19 was obtained seven days after the injection of the second dose of the vaccine and 28 days after the first.
This vaccine effectiveness rate “by more than 90%” was measured by comparing the number of participants infected with the new coronavirus in the group that received the vaccine and in the group that received the placebo.
Encouraging results, which could allow the two pharmaceutical companies to obtain emergency use authorization for their vaccine in the United States in the coming days. According to them, the three necessary criteria (effectiveness, absence of health risk and ability to produce on a large scale) will be met by the end of the month.
If such an emergency authorization were granted by the American drug agency (FDA), it means that hospital staff members could be the first to be vaccinated in certain countries by the end of the year, suggests the Guardian.
According to Pfizer and BioNTech, up to 50 million doses of vaccines could be supplied worldwide in 2020 and up to 1.3 billion doses in 2021.
At present, hasNo vaccine has yet received approval for large-scale commercial distribution. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 10 vaccine clinical trials are currently in phase 3 worldwide. Among them, those of the American biotech Moderna, several Chinese laboratories and the British AstraZeneca, in collaboration with the University of Oxford.
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