This time one has been shown to be 94 a half percent effective at preventing covert.

19 on doesn't need to be stored at such low temperatures.

The trial is ongoing, and the US firm Moderna plans to apply to regulators in the coming weeks to get approval for emergency use.

Off the jab.

The results come after similar results from Pfizer and add to growing confidence that vaccines can help end this pandemic.

So let's take a closer look because interim results for this phase three trials show that the vaccine is 94.5% effective at stopping symptomatic infections, it can be transported a standard freezer temperature of around minus 20 degrees Celsius, which could be a significant benefit over fighters vaccine, which needs to be stored at minus 70.

The vaccine requires two doses four weeks apart.

The United States has preordered stocks of this vaccine, and Madonna expects to have 20 million doses available for the U.

S.

By the end of the year, and it plans to make 500 million toe one billion doses available for use around the world in 2021 while the company's president, Dr Steven Hard, spoke to our medical editor, Fergus Walsh.

Obviously, we're thrilled.

It's been a long year for many of us on that our company has been a long, hard slog to get to the point where we now have clear evidence of efficacy, the vaccine to prevent covert 19 disease There was a moment of pretty intense relief.

It's been a long, hard strives, I said.

But that quickly passed after about a minute.

It became a realization that now that we know the vaccine works, we have to get busy toe work, manufacturing and distributing it.

But, um, clearly a n'importe milestone in a great milestone for us as a company and hopefully for us, more generally as we fight this pandemic, where it's talk now to Dr Maria Sundaram has an infectious disease expert for the Institute for Clinical Evaluation Sciences in Toronto and joins me live here on the program.

How excited the U by this development, extraordinarily.

So this is really great news, Uh, just in terms of what we've discovered a week after the Pfizer results were revealed.

Is that a coincidence, or is there some form of data sharing.

How is it that we're getting these results in quick succession?

It's possible that the sort of timeline in which we're getting these results is purely coincidental.

I think, uh, you know, we're getting them as soon as they can come out.

And it happened that Pfizer and Moderna both were able to sort of report those results on similar timelines.

But great news for us a great couple of weeks ago.

Thank you.

On which bit makes you most optimistic.

Is it that statistics of 94 a half percent effectiveness?

Is it the fact that storage tempers only minus 20?

What is it that most excites you the most?

The thing that most excites me is a combination of the 95 94.5% effectiveness, uh, estimate and the fact that they were able to observe so many covert 19 cases.

Uh, normally, we do a try A.

We want to see a certain number of people having the outcome that we're trying to prevent just so that we know that the treatment is truly effective and not just, uh, you know, due to random chance.

So the number of cases that we're seeing in the modern a trial that are being reported in these interim results are promising that this 94.5% effectiveness estimate is really very much true representation of what we can expect to see in a broader group of people.

So I find that very heartening, very reassured both both last week on this week we're still waiting for the safety analysis.

What do you think is the likely timeframe on that?

I hope it's quite soon.

Um, I know that Ah, lot of people, myself included, are really very, very interested in the safety results.

I think the preliminary results from Moderna are very promising.

There there is a similar safety profile to other vaccines that we might be familiar with, like flu vaccines.

So you might experience some pain of the injection site.

Might feel junkie for maybe a day, but not something quite so severe Eyes, prolonged fever, anything like that.

So also very, very good news increasingly is the focus.

Now, do you think turning toe manufacturing to distribution to fairness?

ALS those sorts of absolutely fundamental questions?

Yes, absolutely.

Um, what I like to say and I hope this will be relevant for your viewers as well as American.

I like to say this is just one inning in the baseball game, so you know we needed a vaccine.

And once we have a vaccine, we're going to need to be able to deliver that vaccine.

So every vaccine that remains in the vial and not in people's arms 0% effective eso now Absolutely.

You're right.

We need to focus on exactly how we're going to manufacture all the other components that come with vaccines, the needles and syringes, the boxes that they're packaged in on.

Then they need to be delivered fairly and equitably as well as quickly.

Well, Doctor, thank you so much for joining us just as a quick postscript to what we were talking about.

Their interesting because the company have bean obviously giving that information about distribution and temperatures.

Andi, just a line from the head of vaccines for the U.

S.

Operation Warp speed program saying Aldonas vaccine will be easy to distribute, particularly to rural areas, because it can be stored for one month at standard refrigerator temperatures.

So they too, at the head of the vaccines at the U.

S.

Operation walks free program, encouraged by what they've heard from the company there in America, we'll have plenty more on that story throughout the course of our program.