US front of queue for most effective vaccine

Britain faces longer wait for ‘tremendously exciting’ Moderna jab that claims success rate of 94.5pc

‘This news is tremendously exciting and considerably boosts optimism that we will have a choice of good vaccines in the next few months’

THE most effective coronavirus vaccine so far may not be widely available in Britain as US citizens will get priority, The Daily Telegraph understands.

Moderna yesterday became the third group to release interim trial results, saying its vaccine protected 94.5 per cent of people, making it more successful than the jabs from Pfizer/biontech and Russia.

Last night the Government said it had ordered five million doses from Moderna, enough for 2.5 million people to receive the required two doses. But the jab will not be available in Britain until at least spring 2021, as the firm had prioritised the US.

A government source said Moderna had made it clear the US was its main market and availability would be limited. The Government has instead ordered 350 million vaccines from Biontech/pfizer, Oxford/astrazeneca, Novavax, Janssen, Gsk/sanofi Pasteur and Valneva.

British experts hailed the latest vaccine announcement as “tremendously exciting”, saying it suggested the world would soon have several available jabs.

“First we heard 90 per cent efficacy from Pfizer and Biontech, then the Russians said 92 per cent and now Moderna says 94.5 per cent,” said Peter Openshaw, professor of experimental medicine at Imperial College London.

“This news is tremendously exciting and considerably boosts optimism that we will have a choice of good vaccines in the next few months,” he said. “This adds to the general feeling of optimism about vaccines for Covid-19.” The Moderna drug was also far easier to distribute as it could be kept in usual freezer conditions of -20C (-4 F), whereas Pfizer’s jab needed to be stored and transported in dry ice at -75C (-103F).

However, it may prove more costly as it needs 100 micrograms per dose, more than three times more than Pfizer’s.

The Pfizer vaccine is already set to be 10 times more expensive than the

Oxford/astrazeneca version, so Moderna’s jab could be prohibitively costly. Both jabs come with extremely high price tags because they work using a completely new technology.

Instead of injecting an inactivated virus into the body, the vaccine carries “messenger RNA” which instructs the body’s cells to build the coronavirus “spike protein” – the little stick on the outside of the virus that allows it to attach to human cells.

Once the body starts producing these proteins, the immune system sees them as foreign, and initiates a T- cell and antibody response, priming it to fight off a real infection. Moderna has been testing the jab on 30,000 people and interim results show it protected nearly everyone from the coronavirus, including the elderly and vulnerable, who are most at risk. It is the first vaccine so far to be shown to protect older people and prevent serious disease.

This first interim analysis was based on 95 cases, of which 90 cases of Covid19 were observed in the placebo group versus five cases observed in the MRNA1273 group. A secondary study analysed severe cases of Covid-19 and included 11 severe cases. All 11 cases occurred in the placebo group and none in the MRNA1273 vaccinated group. Side- effects were mild and short-lived, and included fatigue, muscle pain, joint pain, headache, and soreness at the injection site.

“This is a pivotal moment in the development of our Covid-19 vaccine candidate,” said Stéphane Bancel, chief executive officer of Moderna. “Since early January, we have chased this virus with the intent to protect as many people around the world as possible.”

Moderna said it would submit an application for Emergency Use Authorisation with the US Food and Drug Administration in the coming weeks.

Stephen Evans, professor of pharmacoepidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said: “This announcement from Moderna is a further encouragement that vaccines will be found to not only have an acceptable efficacy, but an efficacy that is much greater than we had anticipated.

“This is the first study to report on severe cases and, while uncertainty remains, the finding of no severe cases with the vaccine and 11 cases with placebo is very strong evidence that the vaccine prevents severe as well as mild disease.” 1