Pfizer says COVID-19 vaccine is looking 90% effective

Pfizer Inc said yesterday that its COVID-19 vaccine may be remarkably 90 per cent effective, based on early and incomplete test results that nevertheless brought a big burst of optimism to a world desperate for the means to finally bring the catastrophic outbreak under control.

The announcement came less than a week after an election seen as a referendum on President Donald Trump’s handling of the scourge, which has killed more than 1.2 million people worldwide, including almost a quarter-million in the United States alone.

“We’re in a position potentially to be able to offer some hope,” Dr Bill Gruber, Pfizer’s senior vice-president of clinical development, told The Associated Press. “We’re very encouraged.”

Pfizer, which is developing the vaccine with its German partner BioNTech, is now on track to apply later this month for emergency-use approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), once it has the necessary safety information in hand.

Vaccine Unlikely before year end

Even if all goes well, authorities have stressed it is unlikely any vaccine will arrive before the end of the year, and the limited initial supplies will be rationed.

Dr Anthony Fauci, the US government’s top infectious-disease expert, said the results suggesting 90 per cent effectiveness are “just extraordinary,” adding: “Not very many people expected it would be as high as that.”

“It’s going to have a major impact on everything we do with respect to COVID,” Fauci said as Pfizer appeared to take the lead in the all-out global race by pharmaceutical companies and various countries to develop a well-tested vaccine against the virus.

Dr Bruce Aylward, the World Health Organization’s senior adviser, said Pfizer’s vaccine could “fundamentally change the direction of this crisis” by March, when the UN agency hopes to start vaccinating high-risk groups.

Still, yesterday’s announcement doesn’t mean for certain that a vaccine is imminent: This interim analysis, from an independent data-monitoring board, looked at 94 infections recorded so far in a study that has enrolled nearly 44,000 people in the US and five other countries.

Some participants got the vaccine, while others got dummy shots. Pfizer released no specific breakdowns, but for the vaccine to be 90 per cent effective, nearly all the infections must have occurred in placebo recipients. The study is continuing, and Pfizer cautioned that the protection rate might change as more COVID-19 cases are added to the calculations.

Dr Jesse Goodman of Georgetown University, former chief of the FDA’s vaccine division, called the partial results “extremely promising,” but ticked off many questions still to be answered, including how long the vaccine’s effects last and whether it protects older people as well as younger ones.