Jahnavi Sarma
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Written By: Jahnavi Sarma | Updated : November 18, 2020 7:20 PM IST
Pfizer-BioNTech use the 'mRNA' technology which means the vaccine is not embedded with the virus itself and there is, therefore, no risk of catching COVID-19 from the shot.
Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech released a second batch of interim results on Wednesday, saying their COVID-19 vaccine candidate is 95 per cent effective and also protects the most vulnerable people in older age groups from the risk of falling prey to the virus. "Primary efficacy analysis demonstrates BNT162b2 to be 95 per cent effective against COVID-19 beginning 28 days after the first dose; 170 confirmed cases of COVID-19 were evaluated, with 162 observed in the placebo group versus 8 in the vaccine group," the company said. The Pfizer vaccine comes loaded with one tricky logistical challenge: It needs to be stored at extreme sub-zero temperatures. Moderna - the other US pharma giant which has released 94.5 per cent efficacy results - says its vaccine remains stable at home refrigerator temperatures for 30 days. Pfizer and BioNTech plan to apply "within days" to US regulators for emergency use approval.
The latest announcement comes a little over a week after Pfizer's first bombshell announcement on November 9 that its vaccine was 90 per cent effective. The first results were based on less than 100 infections drawn from a pool of more than 43,000 volunteers. The company now has 170 infections on which its data are based. Only eight infections were recorded among volunteers who got the vaccine, while only one got severe disease. The company said that no serious side effects have shown up. The most common complaint was fatigue after the second vaccine dose, affecting about 4 per cent of the participants who got the shot.
Pfizer-BioNTech use the 'mRNA' technology which means the vaccine is not embedded with the virus itself and there is, therefore, no risk of catching COVID-19 from the shot. The vaccine is infused with a piece of genetic code that trains our immune system to recognise the spike protein on the surface of the virus - a lethal signature of coronavirus. The Pfizer study has enrolled nearly 44,000 people for its study and will continue to collect data for two more years.
Russia's Sputnik V claims 92 per cent efficacy in preventing COVID-19 even as a second vaccine from the country, EpiVacCorona, gets regulatory approval and post-registration trials have already started for the same. The Sputnik V vaccine is the world's first registered vaccine against the novel coronavirus created on the well-studied platform of human adenoviral vectors. Moderna has also revealed that its COVID-19 vaccine has shown more than 94.5 per cent effectiveness based on the interim data from the company's ongoing Phase-3 study. Six other potential COVID-19 vaccines are also under different stages of development in the US.
The vaccines are being developed using three different platform technologies: Messenger RNA, live viral vectors and recombinant protein. While Pfizer and Moderna's vaccines use the messenger RNA platform, Johnson and Johnson and AstraZeneca/Oxford University's vaccine uses live viral vectors. Novavax and Sanofi/GlaxoSmithKline's vaccine candidates are built on the recombinant protein platform.
Now, with the possibility of an effective vaccine hitting the market becoming a real possibility in the near future, many people have expressed doubts about the safety and efficacy of a vaccine that is developed in such a short time. A World Economic Forum/Ipsos global survey in October revealed that vaccine hesitancy is increasing among adults across the globe. The main reason for this is concern about possible side-effects. The survey reported that 34 per cent of the respondents expressed concerns about side effects while 33 per cent of the participants said they were worried about clinical trials moving too fast.
(With inputs from IANS)
