Pfizer vaccine no longer needs to be stored at ultra-low temperatures – Economic, Financial and Business News

BioNTech / Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine no longer requires storage at ultra-low temperatures, allowing its distribution to be greatly expanded to medical clinics, pharmacies and beyond.

Stability data, which companies submitted to the US regulator, show that Doses can be stored at normal medical freezing temperatures of -15 ° C to -25 ° C for up to two weeks, Compared to previously required storage conditions of -60 ° C to -80 ° C.

Ugur Sahin, CEO of BioNTech, states that the ability to store the vaccine at higher temperatures will give vaccination centers “greater flexibility”. He also noted that the company continues to develop new formulations to make the doses “even easier to transport and use”.

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BioNTech / Pfizer’s breakthrough vaccine was the first to gain regulatory approval in the UK, US and EU last year, but the need to store and transport it below less 60 degrees complicated its deployment. All in remote areas without infrastructure to maintain the “cold” chain.

DHL, one of the logistics companies involved in shipping the vaccine, said earlier this month that governments had not prepared for the “last logistics mile,” which is the last step in the delivery process to the country. -beyond the distribution and storage centers.

The new storage requirements are expected to alleviate these limitations and increase the competitiveness of the vaccine.

The news comes at the same time as an Israeli study, published in The Lancet, found that a single injection of the two-dose vaccine was 85% effective, which is a new impetus for the BioNTech / Pfizer vaccine.

The study of 9,000 healthcare workers at Israel’s Sheba Medical Center, a major research hospital, found that a single dose reduced the number of people who developed symptomatic Covid-19 by 85% 15 to 28 days after inoculation.

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The researchers also concluded that a single dose reduced asymptomatic infections by 75%, which suggests that people are much less likely to contract and transmit Covid-19 when vaccinated with just one application. In clinical trials, two doses taken three weeks apart were 95% effective.

“This groundbreaking research supports the UK government’s decision to begin immunizing its citizens with a single dose of the vaccine,” said Arnon Afek, deputy director general of Sheba Medical Center.

The Sheba Medical study comes after its notoriety an analysis in February that showed a decrease in the number of cases and hospitalizations in Israel among vaccinated age groups, when many only received a single dose.

It is also based on a laboratory study which found that 91% of doctors and nurses had a strong antibody response three weeks after receiving the first dose.

Israel is at the forefront of the world in vaccination after signing an agreement with Pfizer that allowed it to secure more doses by offering to study when herd immunity is reached in the small country.

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Gili Regev-Yochay, director of the infection prevention and control unit at Sheba Medical, said that the vaccine is “surprisingly effective”. The advantage of studying healthcare workers is that they all follow the same testing procedures.

The study was dominated by the younger population, likely to have a stronger immune response, and did not have data on the duration of protection because workers were only followed for the weeks before the second dose. However, Regev-Yochay said that the immune response is said to last “a long time”.

“If it works this well in four weeks, you can definitely delay the second dose a bit longer,” he concluded.

Traduccin: Mariana Oriolo