Moderna vaccine results stunningly impressive, says infectious disease expert Fauci

Dr Anthony Fauci, the Director of the National Institute of
Allergy and Infectious Diseases, on Monday hailed the recent primary trial
results of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate as ‘stunningly impressive’, AFP reported.

In an interview with news agency AFP, Fauci said he would
settle for injections that would prevent 70-75% people from falling sick.

“The idea that we have a 94.5 % effective vaccine is
stunningly impressive. It is really a spectacular result that I don’t think
anybody had anticipated would be this good,” Fauci was quoted by AFP as saying.

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, led
by Fauci, began co-developing the vaccine with the US biotech company in January,
shortly after the genetic sequence of the novel coronavirus was shared by China.

The vaccine uses a comparatively new process, through which,
human cells are infiltrated by the synthetic version of a molecule called ‘messenger
RNA’, which, then develops said cells into vaccine-generating factories. Notably,
no vaccine based on this platform has been approved till now.

“There were many people who had reservations about using
something that had not been tried and true over the years; in fact, some people
even criticized us for that,” Fauci said.

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The preliminary results have been published based on results
acquired from 95 volunteers out of 30,000 volunteers recruited for the test.
Out of 95, 90 were placed in the placebo group and five made up the group which
actually received the drug named mRNA-1273, directing at a 94.5 % efficacy
rate.

Last week, American pharmaceutical firm Pfizer and German partner
BioNTech also reported more than 90 percent efficacy for their mRNA-based vaccine.

Asked whether the mRNA process was here to stay, Fauci
claimed that “mRNA is here, it’s established itself, it doesn’t need to prove
anything anymore.”