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The United States approved the coronavirus vaccine developed by the American biotech firm Moderna, a week after doing the same with Pfizer-BioNTech’s. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the United States government agency that deals with drugs, has issued a favorable opinion with an emergency authorization, an expedited procedure that allows a vaccine or drug to be distributed before it is is completed. all the necessary processes for the actual approval, which will eventually be granted in the coming months. The United States has already agreed with the company to buy 200 million doses of the vaccine and six million should be ready.
Except for symbolic vaccines like that of the Vice President of the United States, Mike Pence, the first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine are being distributed to at-risk members of healthcare workers and the elderly, starting with the living in nursing homes. The same is likely to be true for the first few doses of Moderna’s vaccine, but how it has not yet been decided. Even putting together all the doses of the two vaccines (they are expected to vaccinate 22.5 million Americans in January), there is not enough for everyone who works in the health system and for residents and employees of nursing homes. for the elderly. Meanwhile, other categories of people are calling for priority: all those who can be considered essential workers, from bus drivers to funeral directors.
The shipment of the Moderna vaccine doses will begin on Sunday and the first deliveries will take place on Monday: administration could begin on the same day.
How is Moderna’s vaccine?
Moderna had produced a first experimental vaccine in February, when the coronavirus pandemic was mainly prevalent in China. On November 30, it declared that its vaccine was 94.5 percent effective and that it also had the ability to prevent the most serious forms of COVID-19.
Like the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, Moderna’s vaccine must be given in two doses and is based on messenger RNA (mRNA), the molecule that encodes and carries the instructions contained in DNA to make proteins. It uses synthetic forms of mRNA that contain instructions to make certain coronavirus-specific proteins to “teach” the immune system to recognize and counteract them, but without the risks of an infection with the real coronavirus. The immune system can use the knowledge gained to counteract these proteins to counteract any actual infection.
The mRNA-based technique allows doses to be produced more quickly and simplifies some steps than traditional methods, but it is fairly recent and so far no mRNA-based vaccine has been commercialized or used on a large scale. For this reason, there are still some doubts about the potential and reliability of the system and some caution is required.
Unlike Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine, Moderna’s should not be stored at temperatures around -70 ° C, which complicates transport and dose distribution. Moderna vaccine should be stored at -20 ° C and once thawed it remains stable for approximately one month at refrigerator temperature: therefore, it will be easier to distribute. Thanks to this characteristic, in particular, the American states plan to use it for vaccines in the most isolated and less populated areas.
What do we know about the efficacy of Moderna’s vaccine?
The last of the three clinical trials of Moderna’s vaccine was conducted by dividing the approximately 30,000 volunteer participants into two groups: one received both doses of the vaccine, while the other received a substance that does nothing (placebo). In the second group, there were 185 cases of COVID-19, while among those who received the vaccine, only 11. Among the placebo volunteers who became ill, 30 developed severe symptoms of COVID-19, while no serious cases were detected in the vaccine group. One volunteer died from COVID-19 in the placebo group, while there were no deaths from COVID-19 among the vaccinated volunteers.
What is not yet known, for both Moderna’s and Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccines, is how long the immunization lasts because both vaccines have been around for too short a time to make an accurate estimate. Furthermore, it is not known how effective they really are outside of clinical trials: it often happens that vaccines are less effective in the community than in trials.
– Read also: What do we know about the vaccine in Italy?
In Italy and in the rest of the European Union countries, vaccinations should begin on December 27, with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Initially they will be symbolic vaccines, like Mike Pence’s.
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