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The scientist who delivered the first widely used coronavirus vaccine says the technology behind it will soon be used to fight another global disease— cancer, reports Associated Press. Ozlem Tureci, who co-founded the German company BioNTech with her husband, was working to harness the body’s immune system to tackle tumours when they learned last year of an unknown virus infecting people in China.
Asked when such a therapy might be available, Tureci said, “that’s very difficult to predict in innovative development. But we expect that within only a couple of years, we will also have our vaccines (against) cancer at a place where we can offer them to people.”
In a related development, Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE confirmed that real-world data from Israel suggests their COVID-19 vaccine is 94% effective in preventing asymptomatic infections, suggesting it could significantly reduce virus transmission.
The companies also said the latest analysis of the Israeli data shows the vaccine was 97% effective in preventing symptomatic disease, severe disease and death, which is in line with the 95% efficacy reported in the vaccine’s late-stage clinical trial December.
Israel’s Health Ministry, which is working with the healthcare providers administering the vaccine, said in an emailed statement that the data was collected via the ministry’s tracking of morbidity.
Israel’s Health Ministry previously found that the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine reduces infection, including in asymptomatic cases, by 89.4% and in symptomatic cases by 93.7%. The conclusion was drawn from data collected between Jan. 17 to Feb. 6.
Read More: Special plane to bring the first batch of COVID-19 vaccine from China to Pakistan tomorrow.
Source: Associated Press
