Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine now 95% effective and ‘has passed safety checks’

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has now proved 95% effective in preventing coronavirus and has met safety criteria, according to the firms behind it.

Pfizer and BioNTech have plans to submit the Covid-19 vaccine to the US regulator for emergency use approval within days. They will then share to others around the world.

Sky News explains that the UK regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), is ‘poised’ to fast-track authorisation of the vaccine. 

Final efficacy analysis shows that the jab is 95% effective in protecting from the virus within 28 days of the first dose.

Additionally, it has proved 94% effective among adults over the age of 65, whose immune systems don’t generally work as well as those of the young. 

The analysis reports there were ‘no serious safety concerns’. Just 2% of the 43,000 people involved in the vaccine trials reported a headache, and 3.7% reported fatigue.

The data suggests phase three of the trial works equally well in people of all races and ethnicities.

Pfizer chairman and chief executive Dr Albert Bourla said: “The study results mark an important step in this historic eight-month journey to bring forward a vaccine capable of helping to end this devastating pandemic.

“We continue to move at the speed of science to compile all the data collected thus far and share with regulators around the world.”