According to a report by the New York Times, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is preparing to grant emergency authorization to a highly protective vaccine for COVID-19 created by pharmaceutical company Moderna. The vaccine is set to be authorized this Friday.
Earlier this week, the FDA released data confirming the efficiency of the coronavirus vaccine. In its trials, the vaccine has an efficacy rate of 94.1 percent.
The FDA noted that some people in the trial felt normal side effects relating to COVID-19. Some of these side effects include fevers, headaches, and fatigue. Although there are side effects, the FDA has moved to approve the vaccine, since the agency had deemed the side effects as not relatively harmless.
The New York Times has reported that the vaccine may be distributed by the beginning of next week — a whopping six million vaccination doses could be arriving.
A few factors to consider
Bell’s Palsy
The FDA has reported four cases of Bell’s palsy with the Moderna vaccine. However, this was among 30,000 trial participants. The staff from the data report released on Tuesday concluded there wasn’t enough data to declare a causal relationship between Bell’s palsy and the vaccine. They do warn that the possible causal relationship between the two should be monitored closely.
Side effects
The FDA released data reports on Tuesday, which saw some non-threatening side effects for the vaccine. The most common side effects (according to Business Insider) are as follows:
- Pain at the injection site (91.6%)
- Fatigue (68.5%)
- Headache (63.0%)
- Muscle pain (59.6%)
- Joint pain (44.8%)
- Chills (43.4%)
There were a number of participants who received severe reactions (16.5%) from the list above. For these people, the reactions were strong enough to hinder daily living activities. These were still expected, and the reactions to the shots were typically fleeting, as reported by Business Insider.
Another factor to note: some side effects lasted two to three days while others had lasted longer than a week. A small percentage of the participants who had side effects that affected the entire body had reported that the side effects lasted more than a week.
Stronger reactions for those under 65 years of age
The Moderna study had found that the common side effects tended to be more severe in those aged younger than 65.
