What’s really in the coronavirus vaccine?
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
The coronavirus vaccine is now available to front line health care workers in Missouri, but what's really in the Pfizer vaccine?
Margaret Day, a family medicine physician at MU Health Care said it's an mRNA vaccine with only a handful of ingredients.
According to the FDA these are the listed ingredients for the Pfizer vaccine:
- mRNA
- Lipids
- Potassium chloride
- Monobasic potassium
- Phosphate
- Sodium chloride
- Dibasic sodium phosphate dihydrate
- Sucrose
Saline solution is also used in the process of getting the vaccine.
After taking the vaccine herself, Day said she has had no side effects. She explained how the vaccine works once it enters the body.
"It goes into your muscle cells and then your body is going to take it up into other individual cells in your body," Day said. "The mRNA is a natural substance that your cells will recognize and see as instructions, it's a protein that mimics the spike protein on the actual coronavirus."
As cells are able to produce the protein, other immune cells are going to see the cell be activated and develop antibodies. It will then protect from future exposure to coronavirus, according to Day.
