Interim results in large scale trials by Pfizer and BioNTech showed the vaccine candidate is "more than 90% effective" in preventing COVID-19 in participants without evidence of prior SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Their vaccine has been tested on 43,538 participants, with 42 per cent having diverse backgrounds, and no serious safety concerns have been observed.

Of these participants, 94 who received the vaccine were protected against the disease 28 days after the initiation of the vaccination.

The vaccine was administered in two-doses.

Safety and additional efficacy data continue to be collected.

The developers described it as "a great day for science and humanity" and said they were a step closer to providing the world with a working vaccine.

According to BBC, they are the first to show any results in the final stages of testing.

Based on their projections, they are expected to produce "globally up to 50 million vaccine doses in 2020 and up to 1.3 billion doses in 2021".

BioNTech's co-founder and chief executive Ugur Sahin told The Financial Times that he expects the vaccine's immune response to last for at least a year. He also claimed that there was a low likelihood that a mutation of the virus could overcome the immune response.

We deliver more stories to you on LinkedIn

Image from Getty