COVID-19: WHO lists Moderna vaccine for emergency use
The World Health Organization (WHO) has listed the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use on Friday.
WHO Assistant Director-General, Mariangela Simao said in a statement, it was important to have more vaccines available because of supply problems for other shots, including from India.
“The objective is to make medicines, vaccines and diagnostics available as rapidly as possible to address the emergency,” WHO said.
Moderna announced this week an expansion plan for its production network to boost its capacity to up to 3 billion doses in 2022.
According to WHO estimate, the drug is mRNA-based, it has an efficacy of 94.1 per cent.
The vaccine can be stored between 25oC and -15oC, but it can also be stored for up to 30 days at temperatures between 2°C and 8°C.
Pfizer and its German partner BionTech’s shot, also an mRNA vaccine like Moderna’s, was the first vaccine to get a WHO emergency use listing in the final hours of 2020.
Since then, the WHO has added vaccines from Astrazeneca-SK Bio, Serum Institute of India and Johnson & Johnson vaccines to the list.
Moderna shot is a prerequisite for it to be a part of COVAX, the program to disseminate shots to low-income countries.
It also allows countries to expedite their own regulatory approval to import and administer the COVID-19 vaccine.
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