more positive news for a coronavirus
vaccine this time one has been shown to
be 94 and a half percent effective at
preventing covid19 and doesn't need to
be stored at such low temperatures the
trial is ongoing and the u.s firm modena
plans to apply to regulators in the
coming weeks to get approval for
emergency use of the jab
the results come after similar results
from pfizer and add to growing
confidence that vaccines can help end
this pandemic
so let's take a closer look because
interim results for this phase 3 trial
show that the vaccine is 94.5 percent
effective at stopping symptomatic
infections it can be transported at a
standard freezer temperature of around
minus 20 degrees celsius which could be
a significant benefit over pfizer's
vaccine which needs to be stored at
minus 70. the vaccine requires two doses
four weeks apart the united states has
pre-ordered stocks of this vaccine and
modena expects to have 20 million doses
available for the us by the end of the
year and it plans to make 500 million to
1 billion doses available for use around
the world in 2021.
while the company's president dr stephen
hodge spoke to our medical editor fergus
walsh
obviously we're thrilled it's been a
long year for many of us and at our
company it's been a long hard slog to
get to the point where we now have clear
evidence of efficacy of the vaccine to
prevent 19 disease
there was a moment of of pretty intense
relief
it's been a long hard stride as i said
but that quickly passed after about a
minute it became a realization that now
that we know the vaccine works we have
to get busy uh to work manufacturing and
distributing it but um clearly an
important milestone and a great
milestone for us as a company and
hopefully for us more generally as we
fight this pandemic
well let's talk now to dr maria sundaram
who's an infectious disease expert for
the institute for clinical evaluation
sciences in toronto and joins me live
here on the program how excited are you
by this development
extraordinarily so this is really great
news
just in terms of what we've discovered a
week after the pfizer results were were
revealed is that a coincidence or or is
there some form of data sharing how is
it that we're getting these
results in quick succession
it's possible that uh
the sort of
timeline at which we're getting these
results is uh purely coincidental i
think uh you know we're getting them as
soon as they can come out and uh it
happened that pfizer and moderna both
were able to sort of report those
results on similar timelines but great
news for us
a great couple of weeks i think
and which bit makes you most optimistic
is it that statistics of 94.5
effectiveness is it the fact that
storage temperature is only -20 what is
it that most excites you
the mo the thing that most excites me is
a combination of the 95 94.5
effectiveness uh estimate and the fact
that they were able to observe so many
coca-19 cases uh normally when we do a
trial we want to see a certain number of
people having the outcome that we're
trying to
prevent just so that we know that the
treatment is truly effective and not
just uh you know due to random chance so
the number of cases that uh were seen in
the modern trial that are being reported
in these interim results are promising
that this 94.5 effectiveness estimate is
really very much a true representation
of what we can expect to see in a
broader group of people so i find that
very hard being very reassuring both
both last week and this week we're still
waiting for the safety analysis what do
you think is the likely time frame on
that
i hope it's quite soon um i know that a
lot of people myself included are really
very very interested in the safety
results i think the preliminary results
uh from moderna are very promising um
they're they're similar safety profile
to other vaccines that we might be
familiar with like flu vaccine so you
might experience some pain at the
injection site you might feel junky for
maybe a day but uh not something uh
quite so severe uh it's like a prolonged
fever anything like that so also very
very good news
increasingly is the focus now do you
think uh turning to manufacturing to
distribution to fairness all those sorts
of absolutely fundamental questions
yes absolutely um
what i like to say and i hope this will
be relevant for your viewers as well as
an american i like to say this is just
one inning in the baseball game so uh
you know we needed a vaccine and uh once
we have a vaccine we're going to need to
be able to deliver that vaccine so every
vaccine that remains in the vial and not
in people's arms is zero percent
effective uh so now absolutely you're
right we need to focus on exactly how
we're going to manufacture all the other
components that come with vaccines the
needles the syringes the boxes that
they're packaged in and they need to be
delivered fairly and equitably as well
as quickly
well doctor thank you so much for
joining us just as a quick post script
to what we were talking about there
interesting because the company have
been obviously giving that to
information about
distribution and temperatures and just a
line from the head of vaccines for the
u.s operation warp speed program saying
mordona's vaccine will be easy to
distribute particularly to rural areas
because it can be stored for one month
at standard refrigerator temperatures so
they too at the head of the vaccines at
the u.s operation warp speed program
encouraged by what they've heard from
the company there in america we'll have
plenty more on that story throughout the
course of our program