Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine candidate has got green signal from the European Union’s medicines agency. EU agency is to give the bloc a second vaccine to use in its battle against the pandemic. The European Medicines Agency’s (EMA) human medicines committee approval recommendation comes amid strong criticism of the slow pace at which the vaccine rollout programme is being carried out across the European region of some 450 million people.
Earlier, EMA approved a Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech before Christmas 2020, and began rolling it out to citizens of the 27-nation bloc shortly after approval. Both vaccines require giving people two jabs. Emer Cooke, executive director of EMA, said: “This vaccine provides us with another tool to overcome the current emergency. It is a testament to the efforts and commitment of all involved that we have this second positive vaccine recommendation just short of a year since the pandemic was declared by WHO".
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen welcomed the Moderna Vaccine approval news, and tweeted, “Now we are working at full speed to approve it and make it available in the EU.” In terms of Logistics and Storage requirements, the Moderna vaccine is easier to handle compared to the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine since it doesn’t need to be stored at ultra-freezing temperatures of -70C, and has already received approval in the US, Canada and Israel. Moderna has announced on Monday it was increasing its estimate for global vaccine production this year from 500 to 600 million doses, adding that it is "continuing to invest and add staff to build up to potentially one billion doses for 2021”.
Moderna to produce at least 600 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine in 2021
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