US-based pharma company Moderna Inc. on Monday filed requests for emergency authorisation of its Covid-19 vaccine in the United States of America and Europe. In an official statement on Monday, the company said vaccine efficacy against Covid-19 was 94.1% while it has 100% efficacy in preventing severe cases of a disease that has killed some 1.5 million people. The company claimed the vaccine’s efficacy rate was consistent across age, race, ethnicity, and gender demographics.
Stephane Bancel, the chief executive officer of the company, said the Moderna vaccine would provide a new and powerful tool that may change the course of this pandemic and help prevent severe disease, hospitalisations and deaths. The first two doses of the drug could be injected into the arms of millions of Americans by the middle of December after getting approval from the US Food and Drug Administration.
American pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech are already waiting for similar approvals as they applied last week. They claim their vaccine could be available after December 10. The Moderna vaccine, which was co-developed with the US National Institutes of Health, is being studied in a clinical trial with more than 30,000 participants across the United States.
Moderna is expecting to manufacture 20 million doses of the vaccine in the US by the end of the year while the company has a plan to manufacture 500 million to 1 billion doses globally in 2021.
The company said it expected that the distribution of Moderna Covid vaccine would be easier than Pfizer’s vaccine because it does not require an ultra-cold storage. Moderna reported no new side-effects since its interim analysis.
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The initial analysis said the most common side-effects were fatigue, redness where injected, pain, headache and bodyaches, which would easily be controlled after the second dose.