Dr Fauci highlights Pfizer COVID vaccine's success rate; 'may help overcoming reluctance'

Director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci said that the success of Pfizer Inc.’s COVID-19 vaccine trial may help persuade more people to get inoculated. Speaking to a leading news daily, Fauci cited Pfizer's success rate and said that could be a key factor in overcoming reluctance to take pandemic vaccines that have been developed at top speed.

On November 10, Pfizer Inc announced that its mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine candidate which was found 90 percent effective in the first interim analysis from Phase III study, will be distributed in December across the US. Fauci stated that Pfizer's vaccine has “an extraordinarily high degree of efficacy" and added that the results of a late-stage trial of a vaccine candidate from Moderna Inc. that uses the same messenger RNA technology as the Pfizer shot are likely to be available within a week. 

More than 20 Covid vaccines have entered the final stage of patient studies that new pharmaceutical products are usually required to undergo for regulatory approval. Fauci said that everyone always wants to be very careful when it comes to safety when you’re dealing with vaccines that you’re going to be giving to hundreds of millions of people, adding that 'safety is paramount'. Furthermore, Fauci said that the long durability of the vaccine is not important as its primary concern is to boost people and get immunity up.

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US To Distribute Pfizer COVID Vaccines Early December

On November 10, Pfizer Inc announced that its mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine candidate which was found 90 percent effective in the first interim analysis from Phase III study, will be distributed in December across the US, Pfizer confirmed in a press release. Developed with the German partner BioNTech SE, Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine was declared effective against SARS-CoV-2 by the independent Data Monitoring Committee (DMC) in an analysis conducted on November 8, 2020. US’ top infectious diseases expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, meanwhile, said at a presser that the first doses of a safe and effective vaccine will be available for high-risk Americans in late December. 

“Today is a great day for science and humanity. The first set of results from our Phase 3 COVID-19 vaccine trial provides the initial evidence of our vaccine’s ability to prevent COVID-19,” said Dr. Albert Bourla, Pfizer Chairman and CEO.

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