Normal life back next winter, says vaccine creator
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The impact of a new Covid vaccine will kick in significantly over summer and life should be back to normal by next winter, one of its creators has said.
Prof Ugur Sahin, co-founder of BioNTech, said this winter would still be hard as the vaccine would not have a big impact on infection numbers.
Last week, BioNTech and co-developers Pfizer said preliminary analysis showed their vaccine could prevent more than 90% of people from getting Covid-19.
Biontec CEO Prof Ugur Sahin, in Mainz, Germany. EPA-EFE/BIONTECH SE
About 43,000 people took part in tests.
The vaccine is given in two doses, three weeks apart.
In an interview on BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, Prof Sahin said he was confident the vaccine would reduce transmission between people as well as stop symptoms developing in someone who has had the vaccine.
It was possible, he said, the vaccine could halve transmission which would have a big impact.
Prof Sahin said if everything continued to go well, the vaccine would begin to be delivered at the “end of this year, beginning of next year”.
The goal was to deliver more than 300 million doses worldwide by next April, he said, which “could allow us to only start to make an impact”.
He said the bigger impact would happen later, adding: “Summer will help us because the infection rate will go down in the summer and what is absolutely essential is that we get a high vaccination rate until or before autumn/winter next year.”
His vaccine is one of 11 that are currently in the final stages of testing.
