The Moderna coronavirus vaccine may offer very high levels of protection against Covid-19 and there appears to be no evidence efficacy is worse at older ages, primary analysis for the final phase of the study suggests.
The UK has secured seven million doses of the jab from the US firm – enough for around 3.5 million people in the UK.
Moderna said the analysis of the phase three COVE study of the vaccine candidate, called mRNA-1273, involving 30,000 participants included 196 cases of Covid-19, of which 30 cases were severe.
Vaccine efficacy against the disease was 94.1%, and vaccine efficacy against severe Covid-19 was 100%, the company reported.
It added that the jab is generally well tolerated with no serious safety concerns identified to date.
The study has exceeded two months of median follow-up post-vaccination.
Announcing the results on Monday, Moderna said it plans to request emergency use authorisation from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), to apply for a conditional marketing authorisation with the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and to progress with the rolling reviews, which have already been initiated with international regulatory agencies.
