Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine could offer protection for couple of years

Paris, Jan 08: Moderna's COVID-19 mRNA vaccine is likely to offer protection for a couple of years, the chief executive of the company said.

The US biotech company which came up with the vaccine, received approval for its shot from the European Commission on Wednesday.

Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel said at an event organised by financial services group Oddo BHF that the nightmare scenario that was described in the media in the spring with a vaccine only working a month or two is, I think, out of the window.

The antibody decay generated by the vaccine in humans goes down very slowly. We believe there will be protection potentially for a couple of years, the CEO also said.

Bancel also said that the the company was about to prove that its vaccine would be effective against the variants of the coronavirus seen in Britain and South Africa.