By New Covid-19 vaccine hailed as 90% effective
Drugs firms have announced their coronavirus vaccine is more than 90 per cent effective at preventing the disease.
Pharmaceutical giants Pfizer and BioNTech, who developed the jab, have described it as a “great day for science and humanity”.
Their vaccine has been tested on nearly 44,000 people and so far no safety concerns have been raised.
Pfizer believes it will be able to supply 50 million doses of its vaccine by the end of this year, and around 1.3 billion by the end of 2021.
Participants receive two doses, three weeks apart, with early findings suggesting 90 per cent protection is achieved seven days after the second dose.
This means protection is achieved 28 days after the start of the vaccination process, researchers said.
However, they cautioned that as the study continues the final vaccine efficacy percentage may vary.
There are around a dozen vaccines in the final stages of testing, but the Pfizer/BioNtech one is the first to show any results.
It uses a completely experimental approach that involves injecting part of the virus’s genetic code, or RNA, in order to train the immune system.
Previous trials have shown the vaccine trains the body to make both antibodies and another part of the immune system called T-cells to fight the coronavirus.
The companies say they will have enough safety data by the third week of November to take their vaccine to regulators. Until then it is not possible for countries to begin their vaccination campaigns.
