Pfizer Covid vaccine 95% effective, ready to seek emergency clearance

New York: Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech released a second batch of interim results on Wednesday, saying their coronavirus vaccine candidate is 95 per cent effective and also protects the most vulnerable people in older age groups from the risk of falling prey to the virus.

"Primary efficacy analysis demonstrates BNT162b2 to be 95 per cent effective against Covid-19 beginning 28 days after the first dose; 170 confirmed cases of Covid-19 were evaluated, with 162 observed in the placebo group versus 8 in the vaccine group," the company said.

The latest announcement comes a little over a week after Pfizer's first bombshell announcement on November 9 that its vaccine was 90 per cent effective. The first results were based on less than 100 infections drawn from a pool of more than 43,000 volunteers.

The company now has 170 infections on which its data are based. Only eight infections were recorded among volunteers who got the vaccine, while only one got severe disease.

Pfizer-BioNTech use the 'mRNA' technology which means the vaccine is not embedded with the virus itself and there is, therefore, no risk of catching Covid-19 from the shot. The vaccine is infused with a piece of genetic code that trains our immune system to recognise the spike protein on the surface of the virus - a lethal signature of coronavirus.