As in Asia, the Pfizer vaccine is rumored
Efficacy to be verified, new technology and logistical obstacles: the defects (according to the Asia Nikkei newspaper) of Pfizer's vaccine
Effectiveness to verify in real life and, above all, too many obstacles (yet) to overcome. The news that Pfizer-BionTech's anti-Covid vaccine may be 90% effective has not been well received by Asia and China in particular, where 3 different companies are working on 4 different vaccine candidates in phase 3 trials. For
EFFECTIVENESS TO TRY
Let's start with the effectiveness, still to be tested. “We wait for official data to be published before assessing the effectiveness. I hope to hear good news from clinical trial subjects or regulators. We don't need news published by the companies that develop the vaccines themselves, ”a virologist from the Shanghai Pasteur Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences told China Business News .
POOR DATA
And pending other data, says Asia Nikkei , it is difficult at the moment to assess the efficacy and therefore the immune response of the vaccine candidate of the American company: “Details on the Pfizer candidate remain scarce. Experts say the public should not assume that a vaccine will completely eliminate the risk of contracting the virus, ”the site reads.
The timing of effectiveness should also be clarified.
NEW TECHNOLOGY
Doubts, on the Asian front also about vaccine technology, developed on genetic engineering based on messenger RNA. "Traditional vaccines inject people with a weakened form of a real virus," says Asia Nikkei, while gene-based vaccines, which inject genetic instructions so that cells try to fight the coronavirus once infected, "are a rapidly developing field, but they have yet to be used for humans ”.
THE OFFER
The new technology also casts doubts on the offer. “Messenger RNA is a large molecule that is difficult to produce and store. A production line can also stop due to a small amount of contamination. Regular production is by no means guaranteed, ”says Asia Nikkei.
LOGISTIC LIMITS
And then there are also the logistical limits. Compared to the storage of traditional vaccines, which must be kept at minus 20 ° C, Messenger RNA-based vaccines must be stored at an extremely low temperature, around minus 80 ° C.
Pfizer appears to have developed a vaccine container capable of carrying 5,000 doses of vaccine, "but – writes the Chinese press – the disadvantage of these containers is that they can only be opened twice and the vaccine can only be stored for up to ten days.
"When Pfizer announced the vaccine efficacy data on Monday, it did not provide details on potential logistical solutions," they note in China.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/sanita/come-in-asia-si-sparla-del-vaccino-pfizer/ on Sat, 14 Nov 2020 08:35:11 +0000.