Covid-19 vaccines: everything you need to know about the injections that could save your life

It's being hailed as a saviour and a salvation in a year where close to 1,5 million people have died as a result of the deadliest pandemic the planet has seen since the Spanish flu in 1918 killed 50 million people. 

The discovery of a vaccine has been likened to the invention of the atomic bomb in terms of scientific importance – although unlike the atomic bomb, which unleashed death and destruction, this invention could well liberate the world and see a semblance of normalcy returning to the globe. 

The first breakthrough came when multinational pharmaceutical company Pfizer Inc and German biotechnology company BioNTech announced they had developed a vaccine with 90% efficacy – although they later upped it to more than 94%. Shortly afterwards, biotechnology company Moderna announced its vaccine candidate also had an efficacy of 94%.