Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in late 2019, scientists worldwide have been working on developing a vaccine. While usually, it can take a few years to go through all the stages of the process, the critical situation in many countries forced governments to speed up the approval procedures. As a result, the vaccine from Phizer and BioNTech has already been approved in the UK and Canada, and the US is expected to follow shortly (Aiello, 2020). The main competitor, the Moderna vaccine, is likely to get approval in the coming weeks as well (Aiello, 2020). This paper aims to provide a summary of the advantages and disadvantages of these vaccines.
Both Phizer and Moderna have developed mRNA vaccines targeting spike protein, which allows the virus to infect the cells. The clinical trials have shown the efficacy of the vaccines to be over 90%, meaning that the mass production of those will likely have a decisive impact on the fight against the virus (Cohen, 2020). Jackson et al. (2020) report that the Moderna vaccine has no serious adverse effects. According to Moderna, the vaccine “appears to work equally well in all populations studied, including the elderly and ethnic minorities, and people with conditions such as diabetes and heart disease” (Cohen, 2020, p. 894). Overall, most scholars are satisfied with the high efficacy and safety of mRNA vaccines.
However, one of the main concerns associated with mRNA vaccines is the fact that they do not prevent the spread of the disease. Instead, they trigger the creation of antibodies in the immune system, preventing the development of the virus in the body (Cohen, 2020). Hence, even though vaccinated people would be unlikely to develop severe illness, they could still spread the disease. The fact that both Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have to be stored frozen also represents a serious issue (Cohen, 2020). Transportation of the large quantities might prove difficult, especially for the Phizer vaccine, which has to be stored in ultracold freezers (Cohen, 2020). It remains to be seen whether pharmacological companies can resolve these problems in the nearest future. However, despite certain shortcomings, mRNA vaccines are currently our best bet in the fight against the virus.
References
Aiello, R. (2020). “Historic moment”: Health Canada approves Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. CTV News.
Cohen, J. (2020). Vaccine wagers on coronavirus surface protein pay off. Science, 370(6519), 894-895. Web.
Jackson, L. A., Anderson, E. J., Rouphael, N. G., Roberts, P. C., Makhene, M., Coler, R. N., McCullough, M. P., Chappell, J. D., Denison, M. R., Stevens, L. J., Pruijssers, A. J., McDermott, A., Flach, B., Doria-Rose, N. A., Corbett, K. S., Morabito, K. M., O’Dell, S., Schmidt, S. D., Swanson, P. A., 2nd, Padilla, M., … mRNA-1273 Study Group (2020). An mRNA vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 – Preliminary report. The New England journal of medicine, 383(20), 1920–1931.