The New England Journal of Medicine validated on Thursday, December 10 the clinical trials of the vaccine developed by the American-German duo Pfizer / BioNtech. This magazine is the most renowned in the United States.
BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine
“Safe and effective vaccines are urgently needed “, in this context of the coronavirus epidemic. This is why the vaccine race has been on since the start of the pandemic. To be certain of the efficacy and safety of one of them, the Pfiozer / BioNtech vaccine, the clinical trials have been submitted to a renowned review for validation. An expert committee has been convened by the American Medicines Agency (FDA) to recommend or not its authorization on the market. According to the publication, the results are encouraging. The study was carried out on a total of 43,548 participants, aged 16 years and over, of which 21,720 received the serum called BNT162b2 and 21,728 the placebo (substance without active principle). They each received two doses. It turns out that the “BNT162b2 was 95% effective in preventing Covid-19 “, regardless of “age, sex, race, ethnicity, baseline body mass index and the presence of coexisting conditions “, emphasizes the authors of the scientific analysis report.
Mild side effects
Regarding side effects, no serious problems have been reported. The unwanted consequences are mild, such as pain in the arm, around the injection site, despite frequent fatigue and headaches.
European Medicines Agency (EMA) Director General Emer Cooke said “We have a dataset of over 30,000 candidates who have participated in clinical trials. This gives us a very solid set of data on which to make a decision in terms of both safety and effectiveness. ”
Vaccination campaign has started in UK
Healthcare professionals have already started vaccinating people in Britain, the first of which is 90-year-old Margaret Keenan. The British Medicines Agency has approved the vaccine from the Pfizer laboratory and its German collaborator BioNtech. Examinations of the vaccine candidate should be completed by the EMA by the end of December and that of the Moderna laboratory in mid-January.
