“With hundreds of thousands of people around the globe infected every day, we urgently need to get a safe and effective vaccine to the world,” Pfizer said.
Nov. 18, 2020, 5:15 PM IST
Very soon the corona vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech will be submitted for regulatory approvals. Pfizer announced this on Wednesday. This was the result of their final analysis which shows that the vaccine was even more effective than what was claimed earlier.
The U.S. pharma Pfizer and its German Counterpart said that their last phase 3 trial has now been completed. Report said that it is found that the vaccine was 95 percent effective, preventing Covid-19 infection from people contrary to the 90 percent announced last week.
Pfizer reported that there have been no side effects to the 41,135 adults who received two doses of the vaccine. As reported by Pfizer and its associate company BioNTechsaid in a joint statement. The most common side effects reported were that 3.7% of participants experienced fatigue and 2 % had a minor headache, it said.
Medical experts have indicated a mark of caution, especially before any more data is publicly released. Experts also signalled that distributing the vaccine to the United States and worldwide may have logistical challenge.
However this news has been accepted as a light of hope in utmost severe prevailing conditions with global deathswhich has risen to above 1.3 million, almost 250,000 deaths in the United States alone. It is expected that the approval would be given very soon, and may be available for use by end of this year sources said.
“The vaccine trials results has been an important step in the historic eight-month struggle to bring forward a vaccine which is capable of helping to end this devastating pandemic,” Dr. Albert Bourla, Pfizer chairman and CEO, said in the statement. “With hundreds of thousands of people around the globe infected every day, we urgently need to get a safe and effective vaccine to the world.”
Pfizer and BioNTech said they will request for a fast approval “within days” to the authorities of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, while sharing their data with regulators in Europe.
This news came days after Moderna, a biotech company based in Massachusetts reported analysis from its own Phase 3 trial which claimed its vaccine candidate was 94.5 % effective.