Pfizer and BioNTech have announced that their potential COVID-19 vaccine appears to protect around 94% of people over 65 years old.

The companies today released more data from their ongoing phase three trial, based on two doses given to over 41,000 people around the world. They said their data indicated that their mRNA vaccine works equally well in people of all ages, races and ethnicities and that there had been no “serious safety concerns” reported.

Only 2% of the people testing the vaccine said they had experienced a headache, and 3.7% reported fatigue.

Pfizer and BioNTech last week published preliminary data showing the vaccine offered 90% protection against COVID-19, which was followed up by data from US company Moderna, suggesting its own vaccine offers 95% protection.

Pfizer’s trial is still ongoing and will collect data on the safety and efficacy of the vaccine for another two years, but it expects to start producing and distributing millions of doses between this and next year.

Malta is set to receive doses of the Pfizer vaccine as part of an EU procurement programme.

Health Minister Chris Fearne confirmed last August that Malta has so far been allocated a total of 330,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses from different distributors and said the stock should be high enough to vaccinate everyone within six months.

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