The World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus hailed as "encouraging" Pfizer and BioNTech's announcement on Monday that the vaccine they have jointly developed is 90% effective in preventing the coronavirus infections in ongoing Phase 3 trials.
Taking to Twitter, Dr Tedros said, "We welcome the encouraging vaccine news from @pfizer & @BioNTech_Group & salute all scientists & partners around the who are developing new safe, efficacious tools to beat #COVID19."
A coronavirus vaccine may be rolled out by March next year to the most vulnerable, which could fundamentally change the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, Reuters quoted a senior World Health Organization (WHO) official, as saying, on Monday.
Addressing WHO's annual ministerial assembly, Bruce Aylward said that the interim results announced earlier in the day from Pfizer Inc's phase-three vaccine trials were "very positive".
"The ACT Accelerator programme, which is an alliance between the World Health Organization, countries including France and organizations such as the World Bank, aims to fundamentally change the direction of the pandemic by March as more tests, treatments and vaccines become available," the WHO senior advisor said.
Pfizer results ‘extraordinary’: Fauci
Anthony Fauci, the US government’s top infectious-disease expert, said the vaccine, being developed by Pfizer, to fight the deadly virus will have a “major impact” on the battle against the coronavirus.
The efficacy of the Pfizer drug candidate being over 90% “is just extraordinary,” Fauci said today while speaking to reporters.
He also said that Moderna may have similar results to the Pfizer vaccine because it is also based on mRNA technology, reports Bloomberg.
Pfizer early trials show vaccine 90% effective
Earlier today, American pharmaceutical Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech announced their Covid-19 vaccine candidate, BNT162b2, has prevented more than 90% of infections in a study of tens of thousands of volunteers in Phase 3 trials, the most encouraging scientific advance so far in the battle against the coronavirus.
Pfizer and BioNTech SE became the first drugmakers to show successful data from a large-scale clinical trial of a coronavirus vaccine.
The shots made by the two companies are among the 10 possible vaccine candidates in late-stage testing around the world, four of them so far in huge studies in America.
As per reports, Pfizer has also indicated that is on track later this month to file an emergency use application with US regulators.
"The mRNA-based vaccine candidate demonstrated evidence of efficacy against COVID-19 in participants without prior evidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection, based on the first interim efficacy analysis conducted on November 8, 2020 by an external, independent Data Monitoring Committee (DMC) from the Phase 3 clinical study," the company said in a statement.
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