News - November 17, 2020

5 Things You Should Know About the New Breakthrough COVID-19 Vaccine

November 17, 2020

3 min read

As global scientists and medical experts race to finding solutions to the COVID-19 pandemic, an American biotechnology company, Moderna, has developed a vaccine that has shown great promise in preliminary trials.

The news is coming a week after Pfizer, another American multinational pharmaceutical corporation announced that the COVID vaccine it is developing with German company, BioNTech, is more than 90% effective, according to phase three trial results.

However, reports favour Moderna’s vaccine, which is projected to be a game-changer if it checks out at final trials.

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Here are five important things you should know about the Moderna vaccine:

1. At the blind trial conducted in the US, 30,000 volunteers came forward and half of them were given two doses of the vaccine while the rest were given dummy injections. The independent board of experts who carried out the examination wanted to know the first 95 persons to develop COVID-19 symptoms.

2. Only five of the COVID-19 cases were in people given the vaccine, 90 were in those given the dummy shots. The experts say the vaccine is 94.5% effective against the virus.

3. It was also discovered that there were 11 cases of severe COVID-19 in the trial, but none happened in the volunteers who received the vaccine.

4. Moderna says it could make 20 million doses of the vaccine available in the US this year once it gets approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The company hopes to have up to one billion doses available for use around the world in 2021.

5. In comparison, and according to current data, the Moderna vaccine is easier to store than the Pfizer vaccine. Moderna’s vaccine remains stable at minus 20C for up to six months and can be kept in a standard fridge for up to a month but Pfizer’s vaccine needs ultra-cold storage at around minus 75C, but it can be kept in the fridge for five days.