The Vaccine Went Through Three Phases of Clinical Trials
The Claim
The COVID-19 vaccine was rushed into the market.
News posted on
Emerging story
In December 2020, people on social media started expressing their concern about the speed of vaccine approval. Users compared the vaccine with the usual time a vaccine needs to be approved and developed.
As the vaccine approached the world, many people claimed that it is not safe due to the speed of its approval and development.
The argument on Twitter went viral as some users claimed that the vaccine is the long-awaited achievement to help put an end to the global health crisis.
Misbar’s Analysis
Misbar's investigation found the claim misleading. Getting approval from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency is not easy. The vaccine went through three phases of clinical trials, in the third phase it has been administered to more than 43,000 volunteers without any safety concerns. The data shows that the vaccine is 95% effective in preventing the development of this epidemic.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious disease expert, has apologized for remarks that seemed to criticize the UK's vaccine approval process.
According to the BBC, the UK medicines regulator - MHRA - said it had "rigorously assessed the data in the shortest time possible, without compromising the thoroughness of our review" - adding that it reviewed preliminary data on the vaccine trials dating back to June and had been running a "rolling review" since October which helped speed the process.
The regulator said that Covid vaccines were being developed "in a coordinated in a way that allows some stages of this process to happen in parallel to condense the time needed" adding that it did not mean that "the expected standards of safety, quality and effectiveness" had been bypassed.
