The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted an emergency permit for the vaccine to modern Corona.
The Phase 3 trial found that the company’s vaccine has an efficacy of more than 94%. In the adult group aged 65 and over, the efficiency was slightly lower – 86%. 30,000 volunteers participated in the experiment. 196 of the volunteers fell ill in Corona, of whom 185 were vaccinated with a sham vaccine, and only 11 were vaccinated with the real vaccine. None of the vaccinated had a serious illness (one case was defined as borderline) compared to 30 patients with a severe disease in the control group, including one death.
Israel has signed an agreement to receive 6 million vaccines from Modern, which are sufficient for 3 million vaccinators. The vaccines are expected to start arriving in Israel in early January. The vaccination campaign in Israel will begin next week, with several hundred thousand doses of Pfizer vaccine already arriving in Israel.
Moderna’s vaccine is the second to hit the market. Like the Pfizer vaccine approved last week, it is based on the new mRNA technology. It is slightly more expensive than Pfizer’s vaccine, but its transport requires freezing only to minus 20 degrees, compared to minus 70 for Pfizer’s vaccine.