Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

Major Vaccine Developers Pledge Safe, Effective Products, Defy Political Pressures


Sat 05 Sep 2020 | 03:42 PM
Yassmine Elsayed

A group of major companies working to develop Covid-19 vaccines, including Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and Moderna, are set to issue a public pledge, not to seek government approval for their products before they are proven safe and effective.

According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, the companies will confirm that they will adhere to a high level of scientific and ethical standards in conducting clinical studies and manufacturing processes.

This comes amid growing concern that political pressures ahead of the US elections on the third of November might affect the safety and efficacy of any potential vaccine for this respiratory disease.

At the same time, Russian scientists published the first report on the results of the Coronavirus vaccine and said that it showed an immune response to those who were injected by it.

The report, published in the Lancet medical journal, stated that everyone who took the vaccine developed antibodies to fight the virus without experiencing any serious side effects.

Russia granted the license to use the vaccine domestically in August, being the first country to take this step. In return, experts say the trials were too small to prove efficacy and safety. However, Moscow praised the results in response to the criticism.

Mean while, a Reuters tally showed that more than 26.58 million people have been infected with the new Coronavirus worldwide, including 872,903 deaths, since it appeared in the Chinese province of Wuhan last December.

Typically, the United States topped the list, with 6.2 million cases and 187,791 deaths. Brazil came in second place, with 4.1 million cases and 125,502 deaths. The virus is still spreading in the Americas, where Mexico reported 6196 new confirmed cases and 522 deaths, bringing the total number in the country to 623,090 infections and 66,851 deaths.

The virus is also still spreading in its second wave in several European countries. In Italy, former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (83 years) was admitted to the hospital in Milan for treatment of pneumonia, following his confirmation of infection with the Coronavirus, where he spent the night.

Tests showed that the media mogul and two of his children were carrying the virus after spending a vacation in Sardinia, where the infection rate is higher compared to most parts of Italy.