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Pfizer: COVID-19 shot 95% effective, seeking clearance soon

Published:Wednesday | November 18, 2020 | 9:21 AM
This May 4, 2020, file photo provided by the University of Maryland School of Medicine, shows the first patient enrolled in Pfizer's COVID-19 coronavirus vaccine clinical trial at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore. (Courtesy of University of Maryland School of Medicine via AP, File)

Pfizer said Wednesday that new test results show its coronavirus vaccine is 95% effective, is safe and also protects older people most at risk of dying — last data needed to seek emergency use of limited shot supplies even as the catastrophic outbreak worsens across the globe.

The announcement from Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech, just a week after they revealed the first promising preliminary results, comes as the team is preparing within days to formally ask US regulators to allow emergency use of the vaccine.

They also have begun “rolling submissions” for the vaccine with regulators in Europe, the UK and Canada and soon will add this new data.

Pfizer and BioNTech had initially estimated the vaccine was more than 90% effective after 94 infections had been counted in a study that included 44,000 people.

With the new announcement, the company now has accumulated 170 infections in the study -- and said only eight of them occurred in volunteers who got the actual vaccine rather than a dummy shot.

One of those eight developed severe disease, the company said.

“This is an extraordinarily strong protection,” Dr Ugur Sahin, BioNTech’s CEO and co-founder, told The Associated Press.

The companies have not yet released detailed data on its study, and results have not been analysed by independent experts.

Also still to be determined are important questions such as how long protection lasts and whether people might need boosters.

But all eyes are on the progress of potential vaccines as the grim infection rate jumps in the US and abroad as winter weather forces people indoors, in the close quarters that fuels viral spread.

Pfizer and BioNTech said the vaccine was more than 94% effective in adults over age 65, though it is not clear exactly how that was determined with only eight infections in the vaccinated group to analyse and no breakdown provided of those people’s ages.

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