PFIZER, BIONTECH VACCINE NOTCHES 90% EFFICACY

Scientists said initial trial results for Pfizer Inc and BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine far outpaced their expectations for protection against a completely new disease, but that many questions remain unanswered, Julie Steenhuysen and Kate Kelland reported for Reuters.

The drugmakers said their vaccine was more than 90 percent effective at preventing COVID-19, based on data from the first 94 people in the trial to become infected with the coronavirus. The efficacy rate means that the overwhelming majority of infections occurred among people who received a placebo rather than the vaccine. The 44,000-volunteer study was initially designed for a first interim analysis of whether the vaccine was working after 32 participants developed COVID-19.

Pfizer Inc. said Monday that its COVID-19 vaccine may be a remarkable 90% 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. “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 Lauran Neergaard and Linda A. Johnson of the Associated Press (AP). “We’re very encouraged.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government’s top infectious-disease expert, said the results suggesting 90% 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.