That announcement that trials carried out by the U.

S.

Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and the German manufacturer Bio in Tech suggests they have created a coronavirus vaccine, which is more than 90% effective.

Our health correspondent Anna Collinson joins me now.

Anna, we've been hearing from the CEO off fighters saying This is a great day for science and humanity and a significant step forward.

It feels that way.

Is it?

Yes, definitely.

Definitely feels like a huge milestone.

You know, with these vaccines that one of the greatest tools that we have to get out of the lock down restrictions that some of us are living in the social distancing, not being able to see our loved ones vaccines are seen as a tool to help us get there on.

This is a huge moment.

So this vaccine has jointly being developed by the US Drugs Corporation fighter on the German company by and Tech, and it's the studies enrolled more than 43,000 people from across six different countries, and they say the vaccine so far with a spark, ongoing trials is 90% effective in preventing covert infections on, They say there's no serious safety concerns, but they do have to keep collecting data.

Thes two companies are now calling for the ability to have emergency licensing so they can get this vaccine out to the general public as quickly as possible, ideally before Christmas.

That is the big question.

What needs to happen now so that it can become available quickly?

Well, while this data is extremely encouraging and this does feel like an extremely positive moment, the trials are still ongoing.

And what's most important with when you are thinking about the vaccine is safety.

There also, lots of caveats that come with this vaccine.

So, for example, it's reported the vaccine we need to be kept at minus 80 degrees.

So there are issues about how you would roll this out to places you know we're talking about in England.

NHS, England are talking about preparing GPS and pharmacists to administer vaccine.

How are they going to be able to store that vaccine in minus is not enough?

Well, exactly exactly how are you going, Thio?

Get that out across across the globe, thio everywhere and have that stored appropriately.

You're also battered, battling attitude.

Certain people don't want to be vaccinated.

They don't trust it.

They don't believe in it.

Onda Also, it's also important to point out that this vaccine probably almost certainly won't work for everyone.

Multiple different types of vaccines will be needed, like what we see with seasonal flu, for example, on Also, it just won't work for some people, so other measures will still be needed.

So when they say it's 90% effective, have they broken that down?

Does that mean across every age group?

Because obviously there's more concerned for the elderly in the vulnerable.

So what we have at the moment and as you know, this story is only broken in the last hour or so is they are saying 90% across the board.

But they have covered a wide range of groups of people, people as young as 16 people with HIV and hepatitis C S.

O.

And they've covered people from across six different countries.

So they do have a riel overview of what's going on.

But other question often springs up.

We're talking about vaccine.

How long would it be effective for Do we know that well, again, this is This is it.

You know, they're trialing a vaccine that up until now, it's It's, however old, you know, it could be working up to this point, but we don't know.

So it's all about trying Thio get as much data as possible, and being is hopeless possible getting out as quickly as possible and testing on making it Sure it's is safest possible.

But, yeah, the hope is that it would deal with symptoms.

The concern is it may not completely tackle the infection.

Okay, and stay with us.

We're going to bring in Dr Sophie Harman, who is global health expert and professor of international politics at Queen Mary University, London.

Sophie, your reaction to this news from Pfizer.

Well, of course, it's very exciting.

I think you know the world has been waiting for this vaccine, so I think it's a testament to how pharmaceutical companies, scientists, governments have been working together.

However, let's not get carried away.

As your correspondent was just saying, there is an issue of safety scale.

We still don't know a lot about it, but there is a pause for thought.

This does come with some cautions, though this shouldn't be a reason for us to take.

You know, the foot off the pedal with in terms of getting the basics right around tracking the virus test and trace and things like that we still need.

Those vaccines are not a silver bullet.

And again we have this wider question of trust access.

And I think these the two issues that are going to really come into play globally what needs to be done about that issue, Sophie, Because actually in the past 10 minutes, with hope from the German health minister as well.

And he has said we're really going to need a high level of acceptance off the vaccine like this for it to be effective.

What can the health professionals governments do?

Thio ensure that that exists amongst the public?

Well, this is a huge challenge, and I think the one thing is there is goodwill towards science and public health.

So trying thio increase transparency around the trials.

I think having a lot of volunteers participate also helps so people can understand that this isn't science happening somewhere in a laboratory.

It involves us, the citizens Aziz well, but of course it's about countering these false narratives around concerns around vaccines.

It's about not necessarily dismissing people but meeting where the kind of unease is and trying to explain it.

It's also about community mobilizing.

So we know that in previous anti vaccination issues, actually having building trust within community among community leaders is huge.

So it's not just about world leaders or public health officials making announcements around the safety of vaccines.

It's about looking at community health care workers and community politicians, really driving home that message of trust you mentioned world leaders.

They do have a very big role to play, though, and the news today that Joe Biden is setting up a task force straight away that is his main piracy, as he is president elect now off the US What do you make of that, Sophie?

And the importance of that moment of saying I'm making up a task force is going to have scientists, experts, Republicans, Democrats.

But you know we're going to tackle this, and science is going to be the main argument that we use now.

Yeah, absolutely So Joe Biden was consistent on the campaign trail that he was going to follow the science and you know day one as president elect or working day one.

He's come out with this task force.

Now remember, there were scientists and public health officials on Trump's task force for Covert 19, but it was led by Vice President Mike Pence, not the case with Biden.

He's got three scientists, scientists on public health officials leading this on.

Not only that, he's saying right, you tell me what to do, I'm gonna follow you now.

That's not the whole case, because, of course, Biden is gonna have to do some really sophisticated political bipartisan support to back his plan.

We know that the US has divided.

We saw that with the election results.

And if he's going to get his strategy to have Americans, where Masters a mandatory intervention, he is going to need to get the Republicans onside.

Well, it also just help those Sophie in terms of global cooperation around tackling the pandemic.

If we have Joe Biden in charge in the White House, his attitude, for instance, towards the wh show and other organizations just may change the whole tone of discussion.

Oh, yes, very much so.

So I think on Saturday you could probably hear the sigh of relief coming from Geneva from the World Health Organization that Biden was going to become president elect.

He has been very explicit in saying that he will recommit that us to the World Health Organization.

But he has also noted that the W H O.

Is it is not without its flaws, so he's going to be a supporter of it.

But this doesn't mean that he's not going to be a critical supporter of the W H O.

But really, when it comes to global health security, we're seeing a reset to 2016.

We're seeing global health security director reset up in the White House, more money towards the Centers for Disease Control and, as you say, a commitment toe.

Multilateral institutions like the W H.

O.

What's gonna be important is to see what Biden does around Kovacs.

Now Kovacs is the organization around vaccines and ensuring equitable access to vaccines and lower middle income countries.

Trump has shown very little interest in that, so let's see what Biden says.

Dr Sophie Harman, great to have you with us.

Thanks so much for joining us.

So who they're talking about?

Co Vex.

I wanted to ask you well as well, and are about availability and distribution off the fires of vaccine.

It's not the only one and development there are other vaccines bring us up to date in terms of where they are at on.

Then what happens?

Which countries get which vaccine.

How does that whole process works?

Yeah, sure.

So I mean, there's hundreds of vaccines off in the pipeline and around 12 that are at this stage and fighters the one that sort of beat those other to the post with this big announcement today, another vaccine that has been in the running, particularly three UK, had their eye on is a vaccine from the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca.

Now they are all in a similar stage two fighter on as I say as the data from fighter is looking particularly encouraging, we still have to wait to the end of this trial to see how that turns out.

And it's the same with the other vaccines that are also in the pipeline.

Eso eso as I say this'll vaccine has sort of taken the lead at this point, but it could be that as time goes on other ones overtake that certain vaccines have on more useful for treating a certain type of people are certain group of people s.

So it's really still so much to play for, but a huge moment.

Thank you so much for being with us.

Anna and I will let you get back to looking into what's happening with this fires.

A vaccine will bring UME or as soon as we get it, but certainly a very big moment in terms of tackling the pandemic.