The race for the coronavirus vaccine continues. Recently, the American biotechnology company, Moderna, became the last to reveal positive results from the third phase tests.
Moderna, through reports published today, said that the vaccine is effective 94.5%. The company stressed that it plans to apply to the US regulator, the Food and Drug Administration, for authorization of emergency use in the coming weeks.
Moderna results are the latest to be published regarding effective vaccines against Covid-19, after the vaccine of Pfizer and the German company BioNTech, which is thought to be 90% effective in preventing the disease.
The Moderna vaccine, which is being tested on more than 30,000 volunteers, is not expected to be available outside the US until next year. The biotechnology company said it would have 20 million doses ready to ship to the US by the end of 2020 and hoped to produce 500 to 1 billion global doses next year. The European Commission has a "potential purchase agreement" for 80 million-160 million doses.
The Moderna vaccine, which is based on mRNA-like technologies like BioNTech, is expected to be evaluated by the FDA in a final analysis by studying Covid cases for more than two months.
If the results remain as impressive as claimed, the Moderna vaccine could potentially provide a major advantage over the Pfizer vaccine.
Source: Guardian
