The American biotechnology company Moderna announced on Monday, November 16, that its candidate vaccine against Covid-19 was 94.5% effective. The announcement comes a week after that of the Pfizer and BioNTech laboratories.
While more than a hundred vaccines are currently in development, only a few are in the phase 3 stage of their trials, the last stage before the application for marketing authorization. Among them is that of the Pfizer laboratory, which collaborates with the German biotechnology company Biontech BioNTech. And the news is good. A few days ago, the two companies indeed announced that their vaccine candidate is "90% effective".
Of course, caution is in order. Indeed, it is not always known whether this potential vaccine is capable of preventing serious or fatal cases of Covid-19. These early trial data also do not indicate whether the vaccine could prevent asymptomatic infection. Finally, to date we do not have enough hindsight to estimate the risks of adverse side effects in the medium and long term.
That said, the announcement raised a lot of hope around the world, hinting at a possible "end of the tunnel". In fact, the two laboratories made an incredible stock market operation.
But Pfizer and Biontech are not alone in the race. The Moderna laboratory, which had already revealed encouraging results for phase 1 of the trial of its vaccine, has also just announced that this same candidate for the vaccine against Covid-19 was effective at 94.5 % to reduce the risk of contracting the disease. The laboratory specifically reports that 90 participants in the placebo group caught Covid-19, compared to only five in the vaccinated group.
Moderna also points out that no "serious illness" from Covid-19 was recorded among those vaccinated, compared to 11 in the placebo group . Also according to the press release, between 9% and 10% of vaccinated people experienced some side effects after the second dose, such as fatigue, aches or redness around the injection site.
If this level of effectiveness were generalized, it would be one of the most "active" vaccines, comparable to that against measles, 97% effective in two doses, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
“This is a pivotal moment in the development of our Covid-19 vaccine candidate “, rejoiced the boss of Moderna, Stéphane Bancel. “This positive interim analysis from our phase 3 trial gives us the first clinical indications that our vaccine can prevent Covid-19 disease, including the severe form “.
However, here again, caution is in order. These results are indeed preliminary and have not yet been peer-reviewed. More than 30,000 participants are still taking part in this trial, which began last July. That said, as did Pfizer, Moderna also plans to apply for marketing authorization "in the coming weeks" in the United States.
One of the distribution channels selected by the French authorities involves storage of vaccines at -80°C by drugstores. Then, the doses will be delivered between 24 and 48 hours throughout France, to pharmacies or pharmacies for internal use. After thawing, it will be possible to store the vaccines at a temperature between between 2°C and 8°C , for up to 5 days. However, in the context of this storage, it is a question of freezers, the cost of which is very high. However, it is also possible to use insulated boxes to be filled with dry ice (or dry ice) for storage of up to 16 days with a maximum of two openings per day.
