According to new reports from Moderna’s latest Phase 3 clinical trial, the vaccine offers greater than 90% efficacy against COVID-19 and is more than 95% effective against severe cases six months after the second dose is given.
The company said earlier this month that the vaccine offered protection against COVID-19 for at least six months.
As of Apr. 12, about 132 million doses of the Moderna vaccine have been administered around the world.
"The Moderna team continues to make important progress with our COVID-19 vaccine. We are looking forward to having the clinical data from our variant-specific booster candidates, as well as clinical data from the Phase 2/3 study of our COVID-19 Vaccine in adolescents," said Stéphane Bancel, chief executive officer of Moderna in a company news release.
"The new preclinical data on our variant-specific vaccine candidates give us confidence that we can proactively address emerging variants. Moderna will make as many updates to our COVID-19 vaccine as necessary until the pandemic is under control."
The encouraging news comes just one day after the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended a pause in the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine while they review data involving six reported U.S. cases of a rare and severe type of blood clot in individuals shortly after receiving the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
Following CDC and FDA guidance, every state as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have paused administration of the Johnson & Johnson vaccines.