Safety profile of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine ‘absolutely benign’, Professor Uğur Şahin says
Creator says Pfizer coronavirus vaccine has no serious side-effects and believes it will more than halve COVID-19 transmission around the world.
Professor UÄŸur Åžahin says his Pfizer BioNTech vaccine has had no serious side-effects and believes it will more than halve COVID-19 transmission around the world, leading to a “dramatic reduction in cases”.
The United Kingdom has ordered 40 million vaccine doses by December, while as many as five million people in Australia will be able to receive the vaccine once it has obtained Australian regulatory approval in the new year.
Prof Şahin, who heads BioNTech, believes the vaccine’s roll-out will see life return to normal by mid-2021. He said side effects of the vaccine, administered in two jabs 21 days apart, were mild to moderate pain in the injection site for a few days, and a mild to moderate fever for one or two days.
“We did not see any other serious side-effects (in the stage three trial) which would result in the pausing or halting of the study,” Prof Şahin told the BBC.
“We have now safety data for a proportion of the subjects for more than two months, and we are continuing to collect data for more than two years, to not only see the short and mid-term side effect profile but also the long-term side effect profile.
“But so far the safety profile appears to be absolutely benign.”
Prof Şahin said he expected that the vaccine’s impact — which boosts the body’s antibody response to COVID-19 — would decline over time. But he said it was unknown at this stage if people would require annual injections, or boosters every couple of years, or every five years.
Stage three trials showed the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine to be 90 per cent effective.
Prof Şahin said it would become known in a few months if the vaccine stopped the spread of the virus, or whether it would simply mitigate symptoms of the virus.
“As a scientist and from extrapolation of what we have seen so far from other viruses, I would expect a high efficacy in preventing disease translates into at least some efficacy in preventing infection,” he said.
#Marr: Will society be back to normal by spring 2021?
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BioNTech founder Prof UÄŸur Åžahin: "We can have a normal winter next year" if a high vaccination rate is achieved by autumn
Covid-19 https://t.co/yuuSb1O1wa pic.twitter.com/4ho76VHX0x
“I’m very confident that transmission between people will be reduced by such a highly effective vaccine — maybe not 90 per cent but maybe 50 per cent. But we should not forget that even that would result in a dramatic reduction of the pandemic spread.”
Prof Şahin said Europe would have a normal winter next year if there was a high vaccination rate in the coming months. More than 300 million doses of the Pfizer BioNTech will be distributed by April, Prof Şahin said.
“Summer will help us because the infection rate will go down in the summer and what is absolutely essential is that we get a high vaccination rate until or before autumn/winter next year.”
Other vaccines in stage three trials, including the Oxford AstraZeneca candidate, are also preparing to release efficacy results in the coming weeks.
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