COVID-19 Vaccine News: Arrival Before Time?
As per the reports
available then we had maintained in our earlier post that the leading COVID-19 vaccine
of the world Pfizer-BioNTech with a claimed efficacy of 95% was going to apply
for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) by mid-December and Moderna vaccine a few
days later. However, with the rush for the first usable vaccine and the people
of the worst-hit USA desperate for a vaccine, Pfizer-BioNTech had already applied
for EUA with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in US, and following it up
also applied for the European regulator, European Medicines Agency (EMA). In
fact, United Kingdom has already placed orders for 40 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech
and it is likely to give approval in a matter of days now in which case UK could
be the very first country in the world to officially approve a COVID-19
vaccine. The FDA is likely to examine Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine data by 10th
December.
Therefore, these
two vaccines are set to arrive much before time, that is to say, within this year
of 2020 that saw total cases of more than 63.5 million infections so far
worldwide. The best thing about them is that their efficacy rates are much
healthier and higher than the 50% benchmark set by the FDA and other regulators
for consideration. Besides, both the vaccines use a new technology called synthetic
messenger RNA (mRNA) whereas most others like UK’s AstraZeneca are using more
traditional methods to develop the vaccines.
Therefore, vaccine
could be available for distribution in India too from early next year. Health Minister,
Dr. Himanta Biswa Sarma, of Assam, a state at the top now in terms of
performance, has said that the government of India has marked out three
priority categories to be vaccinated first, and accordingly his state, among
all Indian states, is asked to submit estimates of numbers under these
categories. The three categories are: doctors, nurses and frontline health workers;
employees of the essential services like the police, municipalities, transport
and administration who work on the field; and all citizens above the age of
fifty. A fourth category, people with comorbidities, is also being considered
next, the minister added. Dr. Sarma further informed that vaccination in the
state would most probably start from the month of March 2021. Various states
have also been asked to ramp up the cold storage facilities and infrastructure.
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