Efficacy, adverse effects: about two anti-Covid vaccines

Very low side effects and validated efficacy: the anti-Covid vaccines from Pfizer / BioNTech and AstraZeneca laboratories are on track to be authorized in the USA and Europe.

This could alleviate the mistrust and fears vis-à-vis vaccines against Covid-19, while 50% to 60% of French people, according to surveys, say they do not wish to use them to protect themselves from the virus. Two vaccines, the one developed by the American and German laboratories Pfizer / BioNTech and which began to be administered on Tuesday in Great Britain, and the one designed by the British AstraZeneca have just taken essential steps on the road that lead them to be authorized in the USA and Europe.

In a report released on Tuesday, the US Medicines Agency (the FDA, Food and Drug Administration) believes that the former does not present any health safety risks. It could even give its authorization to put it on the market by the end of this week. To make their conclusions, FDA experts looked at the comprehensive data from the clinical trial in which 38,000 people participated in several countries.

The double effectiveness of the Pfizer formula

Mild and classic side effects are noted, such as reactions around the injection site on the arm (in 84.1% of cases), fatigue (62.9%), headaches (55.1% ), muscle aches (38.3%) or chills (31.9%). Conversely, cases of serious adverse reactions requiring hospitalization are very rare, less than 0.5%, and noted as much in the placebo group (participants to whom the vaccine was not given) as in the group of people vaccinated, suggesting that the vaccine was not involved.

The FDA also confirms in its report the announced 95% effectiveness of BNT162b2, that’s its name, but also notes that it is just as valid for thwarting serious forms of Covid-19 as for preventing contamination with the virus.

AstraZeneca ready to draw 3 billion doses

The efficacy, of 70% on average, of the British vaccine AstraZeneca, developed with the University of Oxford, is also confirmed. A scientific article – a first for an anti-Covid vaccine – published this Tuesday in the very serious journal The Lancet announces the results of the analysis of independent scientists on the data collected from 11,636 volunteers, in the United Kingdom and in Brazil, half of whom received the vaccine and the other half a placebo. The vaccine “is safe,” scientists believe, and only one patient who received this vaccine experienced a “serious side effect possibly related” to this injection.

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On the strength of these results, the laboratory is confident and expects rapid availability of vaccine doses: “We have started submitting the data to regulatory authorities around the world for rapid authorization and our production chains are operational,” says Pascal. Soriot, CEO of AstraZeneca, capable of manufacturing some 3 billion doses for the year 2021.

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