New results suggest Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine 95% effective

Pfizer says that more results from its ongoing study suggest its COVID-19 vaccine is 95 per cent effective.

The announcement comes just a week after the company first revealed promising preliminary results.

It say it is preparing to formally ask U.S. regulators to allow emergency use of the vaccine.

Pfizer initially had estimated its vaccine, developed with German partner BioNTech, was more than 90% effective after 94 infections had been counted.

On Wednesday, the company now has accumulated 170 infections in the study.

Only eight of those infections occurred in volunteers who got the actual vaccine rather than a placebo.

The study has enrolled nearly 44,000 people in the U.S. and five other countries.

The shot also appears to protest older people most at risk of dying from the virus.

The company has not yet released detailed data on its study and results have not been analyzed by independent experts.

Earlier this week Moderna, Inc. announced that its experimental vaccine appears to be 94.5% effective after an interim analysis of its late-stage study.