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The COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer has proven to be more than 90 percent effective based on initial trials, Pfizer said in an official broadcast on Monday, as quoted by Reuters on Tuesday.

This is a major victory in the fight against a virus that has killed more than a million people around the world and hit the global economy.

Scientists, public health officials, and investors have welcomed the first successful interim data from a large-scale clinical trial as a key moment that could help tackle the pandemic if the full trial results go well.

However, the mass rollout, which has to pass multiple regulations, will not occur this year and some vaccines are seen as necessary to meet enormous global needs.

Pfizer and German partner BioNTech will seek to allow emergency use in the US this month, so it is likely that regulations could be decided in December.

If permits are down, they estimate that they could provide up to 50 million doses of vaccine this year, enough for 25 million people, then produce up to 1.3 billion doses of vaccine by 2021.

"Today is an extraordinary day for science and humanity," he said.

Pfizer Chief Executive Albert Bourla. Experts say they want to see the full trial data, but initial results look encouraging.

"This news makes me smile widely. It is such a relief to see positive results with this vaccine and bodes well for the COVID-19 vaccine in general, ”said Peter Horby, professor of emerging infectious diseases at the University of Oxford.

Many questions remain, such as how effective the vaccine is based on the patient's ethnicity or age and how long immunity can last.

"But the bottom line is, it's a vaccine with over 90 percent effectiveness, that's incredible," leading US infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN.

Pfizer hopes to get permission from the US so that this vaccine can be used by people aged 16-85 years.

For that, it needs further data for two months to make sure there are no side effects. The data is expected to be available in the third week of November.

U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar said it took several weeks for the data to be received and processed before the approval was issued. (Antaranews)