Daily US Times: The ongoing Phase 3 clinical trial of Pfizer/BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine confirms its protection against the disease lasts at least six months after the second dose, the companies said in a statement on Thursday.
The question of how long a vaccine provides protection can only be answered once enough time has passed, and while six months of protection is a modest target, it is longer than previously known.
The study is still running and future updates may reveal more about how strong and how long this protection is.
The Pfizer/BioNTech’s vaccine remains more than 91% effective against Covid-19 with any symptoms for six months, the companies said. And the vaccine appeared to be fully effective against the worrying B.1.351 variant of the coronavirus, which is the dominant strain circulating in South Africa.
Pfizer and BioNTech said in a joint statement: “The vaccine was 100% effective against severe disease as defined by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and 95.3% effective against severe COVID-19 as defined by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).”
The companies said on Wednesday that a small trial of volunteers aged12 to 15 showed 100% efficacy in that age group.
Albert Bourla, Pfizer’s chairman and chief executive officer, said that these data confirm the favorable efficacy and safety profile of our vaccine and position us to submit a Biologics License Application (BLA) to the US FDA.
A BLA is an application for full approval of vaccine. The vaccine currently has emergency use authorization, EUA, which falls short of full approval.
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