Editor's Pick: Another possibly effective COVID-19 vaccine announced

(The Editor's Pick is a new newsletter from The Hindu that provides a snapshot of the most important stories from today's edition of our newspaper, along with a note from our top editors on why we chose to give prominence to these stories.)

U.S. pharmaceutical company Pfizer has announced that the COVID-19 vaccine that it is developing along with German biotech firm BioNTech has shown a 90% efficacy in late-stage trials. This result is based on analysis of early data from the trials, and the vaccine is still to complete longer-term efficacy and safety studies required for approval. This is the first COVID-19 vaccine for which performance results have been announced, of the 11 that are in late-stage trials across the world.

U.S. President Donald Trump had earlier said that a vaccine will be ready before election day on November 3 under his Operation Warp Speed to speed up the process. He had particularly focused on Pfizer and had even announced a purchase plan. Pfizer, which has held that it is not part of the project, has now announced the vaccine days after Joe Biden was elected President. Pfizer has said that it has the capability to produce 50 million vaccine doses globally in 2020, and up to 1.3 billion doses in 2021.

Pfizer's vaccine is an mRNA-based vaccine, which is a relatively new technology. Genetic material known as messenger RNA that will trigger the body to produce the same protein as the spike of the coronavirus is injected. The presence of this protein in turn causes the body to trigger the appropriate immune response. The mRNA-based vaccines are said to be more effective and have fewer risks. The initial data that has thrown up the 90% efficacy is based on 94 participants in the trial. This rate could change as more data comes in. The efficacy rate of a regular flu vaccine is about 55%.

With this announcement, the options that are available to healthcare systems across the world have gone up. If the vaccine is approved later this year, the first to benefit will be the U.S., which is now topping the charts on the number of infections and deaths. This is what makes the story important.