How might Covid-19 vaccines work in practice?
9 November 2020, 15:39
How might Covid-19 vaccines work in practice?
With a breakthrough being made in the first Covid vaccine, Shelagh Fogarty heard from LBC's Ben Kentish about how such vaccines could work in practice.
The breakthrough has been made, after initial studies showed the vaccine can prevent 90% of people contracting the virus.
The developers, Pfizer and BioNTech, plan to apply for emergency approval so the drug can start to be used by the end of the month after no safety issues were raised.
It has been tested on 43,500 people in the US, Germany, Brazil, Argentina, South Africa and Turkey.
Speaking of the breakthrough, LBC's Ben Kentish told Shelagh: "Until now the focus has generally been on the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. That's seen as being the most-advanced one.
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But now good news with the Pfizer one too is [that it's] also looking like it's going to work.
"What's really good about this particularly is that if you have different types of vaccines that are all effective then some might be more effective for certain people.
"Some you might need one dose, some you might need more...We should also be clear that these vaccines are not necessarily going to stop people getting Covid entirely.
He added: He said: "But the more you have, the more suppressed the disease is..."
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He then told Shelagh "it is looking positive" that the UK "might have multiple vaccines" and that it has "got access to some of those ones that are looking like they're most likely to work".
Pfizer hope to supply 50 million doses of the vaccine by the end of 2020 and around 1.3 billion by the end of 2021.
The vaccine would include two doses given three weeks apart, and 90% of individuals are then protected seven days after the second dose.
