Will we soon see the approval of the first COVID-19 vaccine?
According to The Hill, the Moderna company applied with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Monday for emergency approval of their COVID-19 vaccine. The company says that their personal tests of the vaccine have resulted in a 94.1 percent effectiveness rate in preventing COVID-19. That’s not all, the tests also found a 100 percent effectiveness rate against severe COVID-19 cases.
Moderna also boasted that there were no serious side-effects discovered. Though, there have been some minor side-effects like fatigue or temporary pain at the site of the injection.
“This positive primary analysis confirms the ability of our vaccine to prevent COVID-19 disease with 94.1% efficacy and importantly, the ability to prevent severe COVID-19 disease. We believe that our vaccine will provide a new and powerful tool that may change the course of this pandemic and help prevent severe disease, hospitalizations and death,” said Stéphane Bancel, chief executive officer of Moderna, said in a statement.
Right now, it seems that the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee will be meeting on December 17 to review Moderna’s product. If approved, there could be around 20 million doses of the vaccine in the U.S. by the end of the year.
That’s not all though, as Moderna is also seeking approval of its vaccine in other countries such as the U.K. Plus, another company called Pfizer is creating its own vaccine. That vaccine has been found to be 95 percent effective in preventing the virus. The first batch of the vaccine arrived in Chicago this weekend, according to NBC5Chicago. While Pfizer is also looking for emergency use approval from the FDA, CDC officials are already setting up talks to decide who should be in the first wave of recipients for the two vaccines.
The news of two effective vaccines is pleasant news in a year full of trauma. We’ll keep our fingers crossed and our eyes locked on further developments as we get closer to the end of 2020.
Source: The Hill, NBC5Chicago,
