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The European Medicines Agency (EMA), which examines the authorization requests of three applicants, declared on Monday that it could approve the first vaccines against Covid-19 by the end of the year or early 2021. Oxford / AstraZeneca, Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna are the three projects subject to this review.
The expectation of approval and the expected implementation of vaccines has been related to two words: efficacy and effectiveness. But while the results of the first three are very promising, each has its advantages and disadvantages.
The British laboratory AstraZeneca, associated with the University of Oxford, announced on Monday that it had developed a vaccine that is 70 percent effective on average, or up to 90 percent in some cases, depending on intermediate results.
Russia announced today that its Sputnik V vaccine against covid-19, developed by the Gamaleya National Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology in Moscow, is 95% effective, according to preliminary results. The results were obtained in volunteers, 42 days after the injection of the first dose. It is advertised as the cheapest.
These results seem, for the moment, less convincing than those of its competitors from Pfizer / BioNTech or Moderna, whose effectiveness exceeds 90 percent, but the British formula has the advantage of using a more traditional technology, making its future vaccine less expensive. . and easier to store.
The University of Oxford and AstraZeneca announced on Monday an efficacy of up to 90 percent, based on analysis of 2,700 people who first received a half dose and, after a month, were inoculated with a full dose. But the results revealed that when two full doses are given, the effectiveness, paradoxically, is only 62 percent.
The experimental vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech was the first to show results in terms of effectiveness, reaching 95 percent, thanks to a study of around 44,000 participants and 170 infected among them (only eight of the infected people received two doses of the real vaccine). Clinical trials have found that the 95 percent effectiveness is consistent across different age groups and across all genders.
As for the North American vaccine from Moderna and the National Institute of Health, it was announced to be 94.5 percent effective, according to an initial analysis of a trial with 30,000 people in the United States, although the results are still poor. preliminary.
Accessible vaccines for all?
The effectiveness of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines is similar, which may be one of the advantages. But not only effectiveness is relevant when the objective is to try to protect and immunize the entire population possible and to have a vaccine accessible to all. So, In addition to effectiveness, price is one of the relevant factors for distributing the drug to more people..
And the price differences between the three vaccines are huge.
The project developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca will cost around three euros per dose. The American multinational Pfizer and the German biotechnology company BioNTech, on the other hand, can exceed 15 euros per dose, that is, five times more.
As for the vaccine from the Modern North American and the National Institutes of Health in the United States, the price can be seven times higher than AstraZeneca, reaching 21 euros per dose. The point is that each person is expected to be inoculated with two doses, which doubles the costs of vaccination for each person.
What are the differences between efficiency and performance?
The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines show some similarities with respect to the technology used and how the inoculation works.
Both vaccines use the same type of technology based on ribonucleic acid (messenger RNA), which produces the key protein to fight Sars-Cov-2. Although they are “technologies that until now were not used in vaccines”, according to the virologist of the National Center for Biotechnology (CNB-CSIC), Isabel Sola, cited by Efe.
Regarding the dosage, the two vaccines against Covid-19 require the application of two doses with an interval of 28 days between each one.
In this point, However, it should be noted that Moderna’s vaccine consists of 100 micrograms of RNA per dose, while Pfizer’s vaccine contains only 30 micrograms.
Thus, both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines use a technique that encodes an RNA molecule that is encapsulated in a lipid membrane so that it can enter cells. AstraZeneca’s experimental vaccine uses deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) -based technology, with inactivated adenovirus genes.
As for the dosage, it is expected that two doses will be inoculated, but the researchers are still evaluating the amounts of each.
Storage temperature can be a relevant factor
Transportation, and the conditions of preservation and storage of medicines are very important factors in making any vaccine against Covid-19 accessible to all. By the way, One of the decisive criteria in the choice of vaccines by various nations will be the conditions necessary for their conservation, since they require different care, techniques and equipment, which are often scarce in hospitals or laboratories.
The novelty of the AstraZeneca vaccine is that, according to the researchers, it is stored in the refrigerator at temperatures between two and eight degrees for a period of six months, which facilitates its transport, distribution and storage anywhere in the world.
Although Pfizer’s must be at very low temperatures and therefore becomes less accessible or logistically easy to use, the pharmaceutical company plans to use containers designed with dry ice to ensure that the vaccine will keep for about 15 days.
But there is still one more criterion that distinguishes these first three vaccines: production capacity.
Pfizer and BioNTech guaranteed a production of 50 million doses by the end of the year and 1.3 billion by 2021. For its part, Moderna defined the advance for this year of 20 million doses and from 500 to 1,000 million until 2021.
And AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford guarantee that they are rapidly advancing production, with a capacity of up to three billion doses of the vaccine in 2021, on a continuous basis, pending regulatory approval.
