Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine: MOH to wait for clinical trial data
COVID-19 | Health Ministry director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah today said the ministry will wait for the third phase report of the clinical trial for Pfizer Inc and BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine before making any decision.
“Although there are 11 vaccines in their clinical trial phase three stage, we have yet to read the reports of the clinical trials so we hope we can get the reports so we can analyse in terms of safety and efficacy of the vaccines.
COVID-19 | Health Ministry director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah today said the ministry will wait for the third phase report of the clinical trial for Pfizer Inc and BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine before making any decision.
“Although there are 11 vaccines in their clinical trial phase three stage, we have yet to read the reports of the clinical trials so we hope we can get the reports so we can analyse in terms of safety and efficacy of the vaccines.
“Hopefully, it will be positive but nonetheless we are thorough in terms of looking into the details. The attention is always in the details,” Noor Hisham said at his daily press conference at the Health Ministry in Putrajaya today.
“Likewise, once upon a time, when we looked into the dengue vaccine, although it was marketable, we did not actually go ahead because there were issues with regards to the safety of phase three of the clinical trial,” he added.
Pfizer and BioNTech have reportedly said their vaccine was more than 90 percent effective in preventing Covid-19 based on data from the first 94 people in the trial to become infected with the coronavirus.
The efficacy rate means that the overwhelming majority of infections occurred among people who received a placebo rather than the vaccine during the trial.
The 44,000-volunteer study was initially designed for a first interim analysis of whether the vaccine was working after 32 participants developed Covid-19.
However, scientists have said that while the results are encouraging, they are only preliminary results.
Also, the vaccine needs to be stored in extremely cold conditions, at minus 70 degrees Celsius or below.
As such, Noor Hisham said there was also the logistics issue to be discussed due to the storage conditions.
“We need to provide all that infrastructure before we can procure the vaccine [...] the low-temperature facilities for us to get ready if we want to procure the vaccine.
“I think these are the challenges we have but most importantly is that we need to review the phase three of the clinical data before we make any commitment,” he said.
Meanwhile, the director-general also expressed his concerns about the new Covid-19 mink mutation in Denmark.
It was reported a few days ago that Denmark had discovered a new Covid-19 mutation among its mink population which could transmit to humans.
“We don’t know the effect (of the mutation) but we worry […] maybe those who have been infected can get reinfected again.
“Secondly, it might have an effect on the vaccines being developed so far, that is our concern,” he said.
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