Production and delivery challenges set up turbulent Year of the Vaccine
Zurich, SwitzerlandReuters As 2020 closes, regulatory approval of COVID-19 vaccines has raised hopes the world can defeat the pandemic next year. But production and delivery challenges suggest beating the disease will be a marathon whose finish line is still far away. Europe on Monday followed Britain and the United States in giving a green light […]
US authorises Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, elderly next in line for shots
Reuters Moderna Inc’s coronavirus vaccine on Friday became the second to receive emergency use authorisation from the US Food and Drug Administration, welcome news to a nation with a staggering COVID-19 death toll of over 307,000 lives lost. Millions of doses of the Moderna vaccine are expected to be added to the US rollout, which […]
WHO expects decisions on Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca vaccines in weeks
Geneva, SwitzerlandReuters The World Health Organization expects to make decisions on whether to give emergency use approval to COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca in the coming weeks, its chief scientist said on Friday. Soumya Swaminathan said the global health body could decide on Pfizer’s vaccine candidate in the next “couple of weeks”, and […]
Explainer: Will COVID-19 vaccines protect us? Does efficacy equal effectiveness?
Reuters The frontrunners in the COVID-19 vaccine race have emerged with different success rates for their shots in clinical trials, but what does that mean for the global fight against the pandemic? US drugmakers Pfizer-BioNtech and Moderna have each said their coronavirus vaccines have an efficacy rate of around 95 per cent and a Russian […]
Breakthrough COVID vaccine tech could help defeat other diseases
Zurich, Switzerland/Frankfurt, GermanyReuters Breakthrough technology that transforms the body into a virus-zapping vaccine factory is poised to revolutionise the fight against COVID-19 but future pandemics and even cancer could be next, scientists say. The initial success of so-called messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) vaccines in late-stage trials by Moderna as well as Pfizer and its German […]
World should not be complacent after COVID-19 vaccine news – WHO
Geneva, SwitzerlandReuters The World Health Organization welcomed Moderna reporting on Monday that its experimental vaccine showed 94.5 per cent efficacy but said that “many questions” remained and it was no time for complacency. Only very limited amounts of any vaccine will be available in the first half of 2021 for people other than priority health […]
Vaccine alliance eyes range of prices for COVID shots, says $US40 would be maximum
London, UK/Chicago, USReuters Coordinators of a global coronavirus vaccines funding scheme are looking at a wide range of potential prices for COVID-19 shots, with a reported $US40 per dose price tag the “highest number” in that range, one of the co-leads of the project said on Monday. Seth Berkley, chief executive of the GAVI vaccine […]