MODERNA, an American biotechnology company that focuses on drug discovery, drug development, and vaccine says clinical results of a COVID-19 vaccine it developed has shown 95 percent effective.
Stéphane Bancel, the Chief Executive of Moderna, said on Monday that the results also provided that the vaccine can prevent other severe diseases.
“The first clinical validation that our vaccine can prevent COVID-19 disease, including severe disease,” she said
This latest announcement comes barely a week after Pfizer and the German firm BioNTech, announced a vaccine which suggests it is 90% effective at preventing illness.
The company said it will be seeking approval from regulators in the US to start administering the drug in the next few weeks.
According to the BBC, the clinical trial involved 30,000 people in the US with half being given two doses of the vaccine, four weeks apart. The rest had dummy injections. The analysis was based on the first 95 to develop Covid-19 symptoms.
Only five of the COVID cases were in people given the vaccine, 90 were in those given the dummy treatment. The company says the vaccine is protecting 94.5% of people.
The data also shows there were 11 cases of severe COVID in the trial, but none happened in people who were immunized.
“The overall effectiveness has been remarkable… it’s a great day,” Tal Zaks, the chief medical officer at Moderna, was quoted to have said by the BBC.
Since the global outbreak of COVID-19, there have been concerted efforts by scientists across the world to develop vaccines and effective treatments against the pandemic which has infected more than 50 million people, killing over a million persons in at least 200 countries.
Pfizer and Moderna were the first to announce early data on large studies, but 10 other companies are also conducting big Phase 3 trials in a global race to produce a vaccine, including efforts in Australia, Britain, China, India, and Russia. More than 50 other candidates are in earlier stages of testing.
In August, Vladimir Putin, Russian President, announced that his country has recorded a breakthrough in the development of a vaccine for the COVID-19.
Putin who said that the vaccine went through necessary trials added that one of his daughters has already been inoculated with the vaccine.
However, the World Health Organization (WHO) which is coordinating global efforts to develop a vaccine against the vaccine said it was in talks with Russia to review its vaccine.
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