Moderna vaccine: the government has bought 17 million doses. With these will be able to vaccinate about 8.5 million people.
Moderna vaccine available today
The Moderna vaccine is the third launched in the UK, along with AstraZeneca and Pfizer-BioNtech. From now on, doses will be given to people in Wales.
But what do we know about this vaccine?
It is a messenger RNA vaccine (mRNA) and uses only the genetic code of the virus. The Moderna vaccine was developed by the American pharmaceutical and biotechnology company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
However, the vaccine has received funding from two federal agencies: the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA).
Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee also participated. Dolly Parton contributed nearly $1 million to the participation. The singer received her dose of vaccine on live social media.
As for its effectiveness, the results say that it is 94.1% against the disease, while against Covid-19 in severe form is 100%.
More than 30,000 people of different ages and ethnicities participated in the trial in the USA. The results are therefore hopeful.
Each person received two doses of vaccine 28 days apart. So the researchers were able to assess the safety and the connections with any other situations.
The research involved 196 serious cases, including 185 observed in the placebo group, and 11 in the active vaccine group. As for the serious cases, they are 30 and all occurred in the placebo group. However, none of the members had received the Moderna vaccine.
One of the advantages of the Moderna vaccine is that it resists to temperatures of less than 20º C. it is sufficient to use a standard refrigerator and distribution is more immediate.
The Pfizer vaccine, on the other hand, needs a minus 70° C, so its administration outside hospitals is more difficult.