COVID-19 vaccine will not be available before December: US health experts

While Pfizer recently released positive data about its experimental coronavirus vaccine, US health experts noted that it will take several weeks more to get the vaccine through the approval process. While speaking to CNN, Dr Larry Carey, who is leading the COVID-19 vaccine trails network in the US, said the Americans should not be hoping for any authorisation from the US FDA before the last half of December. Carey added that he thinks it will take around 10 days for the DA to review Pfizer’s clinical trial data. 

Dr Paul Offit, who is member of the committee and director of the Vaccine Education Centre at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, also agreed on the December timeline. Offit said that the FDA will have to seek the option of the advisory committee, which presumably would be some time early in December. Additionally, the FDA has also publicly schedule any VRBPAC meeting 15 days in advance, so that could slow things a little. 

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Vaccine will be distributed in December 

Meanwhile, on November 10, Pfizer Inc announced that its mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine candidate which was found 90 per cent effective in the first interim analysis from Phase III study, will be distributed in December across the US. Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine revealed to have shown more than 90 per cent efficacy in preventing coronavirus, the preliminary results have now paved the way for the companies to seek an emergency-use authorisation from the regulators if further research shows the shot is also safe. 

While the COVID-19 infections recently passed the grim milestone of 50 million cases, American pharmaceutical company Pfizer said that the interim analysis of its vaccine produced along with its German partner BioNTech group has shown “promising results”. 

The recent findings are based on an interim analysis conducted after 94 participants contracted COVID-19. According to a Bloomberg report, the trial will continue until 164 cases have occurred. If the data hold up and the key safety readout Pfizer expects in about a week also looks good, it could mean the world has a vital new tool to control the pandemic. The recent development could also bode well for the other experimental vaccines, in particular one being developed by Moderna Inc. that uses similar technology.

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