Faizel Patel – 17/11/2020
As the world waits in anticipation for a COVID-19 vaccine, US biotech firm Moderna on Monday announced its experimental vaccine is 94.5% effective against the Coronavirus.
Moderna released early results from a clinical trial with more than 30,000 participants, after US pharmaceutical company Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech last week said their vaccine was 90% effective.
AFP reports that both vaccine frontrunners are based on a new platform called messenger RNA, which is faster to produce than traditional vaccines and effectively turn human cells into vaccine factories.
Dr Nurul Yaqeen, a medical doctor, with special interest in lung diseases speaking to Radio Islam live from Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday says the results of the Moderna vaccine is promising.
“Basically it’s good news because we see a lot of companies and research have successfully found the vaccine for COVID-19.”
Dr Yaqeen says while vaccine research and trials takes years before being released, the COVID-19 pandemic has created an emergency for the vaccine to be released as soon as it is safe to do so.
“After the phase three trial, we will say that we can distribute the vaccine with precaution and we still need to monitor the safety, the efficacy and side effects among the population.
Moderna says it plans to submit applications for emergency approval in the US and around the world within weeks, and says it expects to have approximately 20 million doses ready to ship in the US by the end of the year.
Listen to the interview with Dr Nurul Yaqeen
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