PH allows emergency use of Moderna vaccine

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine developed by American drug firm Moderna.

FDA Director-General Rolando Enrique Domingo announced

this Wednesday, May 5.

Aside from Moderna, vaccines developed by American drugmaker Pfizer, United Kingdom-based AstraZeneca, China's Sinovac, Russia's Gamaleya Research Institute, India's Bharat Biotech, and USbased firm Johnson & Johnson's have been given an EUA in the country.

The World Health Organization (WHO) had earlier said it had listed the anti-COVID-19 Moderna vaccine for emergency use.

The listing procedure helps countries unable to assess a vaccine's effectiveness themselves have access as quickly as possible and allow the Covax vaccine sharing scheme and other partners to distribute it to poorer countries.

The US vaccine is the fifth jab to earn WHO's emergency listing.

The US Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization for the Moderna vaccine on 18 December 2020 and a marketing authorization valid throughout the European Union was granted by the European Medicines Agency on January 6, 2021.

WHO said in a statement that its Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE) had found the Moderna vaccine to have an efficacy of 94.1 percent.

The other vaccines listed for emergency use by WHO are Pfizer BioNTech; AstraZeneca; Serum Institute of India; and Janssen. (With a report from AFP)