
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or


Health Check examines the excitement around the preliminary announcement of 90% effectiveness of BioNTech and Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine in its phase 3 clinical trial. Claudia Hammond talks to Professor Gregory Poland, head of vaccine research at the Mayo Clinic in the United States about what we do and don’t know about the vaccine at this stage, and how the vaccine may be approved and deployed in the coming months. She consults Kalipso Chalkidou, Professor of Global Health Practice at Imperial College London, about the challenges of getting this vaccine to people in low and middle income countries. One logistical problem is that the vaccine has to be stored at minus 80 degrees Celsuis. BBC medical and science correspondent James Gallagher also joins Claudia to explain the innovative nature of the vaccine and how its interim success bodes well for the development of other coronavirus vaccines.
Presenter: Claudia Hammond
(Picture: Medications in sealed vials with a disposable plastic medical syringe. Photo credit: GIPhotoStock/Getty Images.)
By BBC World Service4.7
7979 ratings
Health Check examines the excitement around the preliminary announcement of 90% effectiveness of BioNTech and Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine in its phase 3 clinical trial. Claudia Hammond talks to Professor Gregory Poland, head of vaccine research at the Mayo Clinic in the United States about what we do and don’t know about the vaccine at this stage, and how the vaccine may be approved and deployed in the coming months. She consults Kalipso Chalkidou, Professor of Global Health Practice at Imperial College London, about the challenges of getting this vaccine to people in low and middle income countries. One logistical problem is that the vaccine has to be stored at minus 80 degrees Celsuis. BBC medical and science correspondent James Gallagher also joins Claudia to explain the innovative nature of the vaccine and how its interim success bodes well for the development of other coronavirus vaccines.
Presenter: Claudia Hammond
(Picture: Medications in sealed vials with a disposable plastic medical syringe. Photo credit: GIPhotoStock/Getty Images.)

7,732 Listeners

881 Listeners

1,037 Listeners

5,513 Listeners

1,814 Listeners

1,830 Listeners

1,075 Listeners

772 Listeners

267 Listeners

346 Listeners

961 Listeners

436 Listeners

417 Listeners

84 Listeners

249 Listeners

354 Listeners

352 Listeners

85 Listeners

134 Listeners

476 Listeners

142 Listeners

3,171 Listeners

757 Listeners

1,635 Listeners