The European Medicines Agency could vote on the authorization of the Moderna vaccine on Wednesday.

While it is as effective against severe forms of the disease as Pfizer's vaccine, it has the advantage of being stored at -20 degrees instead of -70 degrees, which will make it easier to transport and store. 

DECRYPTION

It is a much anticipated tool in the fight against the coronavirus epidemic.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is expected to vote on the authorization of the American Moderna vaccine on Wednesday, while the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine is currently the only one authorized in Europe.

If authorized, the first doses could be available in France from next week.

Delivery rate, efficiency, storage ... Europe 1 takes stock of the main things to know about this vaccine. 

How many doses will be available?

If the European green light is given this Wednesday, we can hope for validation from the High Authority for Health by the end of the week, and first doses available next week.

The European Union has ordered 160 million doses of this Moderna vaccine, and France will receive 15%.

What, therefore, to vaccinate 12 million French people with two doses 28 days apart.

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Obviously, not all of these vaccines will be available at once.

Moderna doses are expected to be delivered at the rate of 500,000 per month.

For comparison, for Pfizer, it's 500,000 per week.

What efficiency?

But what do we know about the effectiveness of the Moderna vaccine?

Like the Pfizer vaccine, it is 94% effective against severe forms of the disease, and is also based on the same messenger RNA technology.

On the other hand, it has the advantage of being stored at -20 degrees instead of -70 degrees, which will facilitate the logistics of transport and storage.

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At this stage, we do not yet know if the Moderna vaccine will limit the number of contaminations, because to know if we remain contagious after vaccination, we must know if there is still virus in the nose or throat, therefore there must have been nasopharyngeal swabs during clinical trials.

And there is a lack of data at this stage.

What are the next expected vaccines?

Validation of the AstraZeneca vaccine is expected by the end of January.

It has an effectiveness of 70% on severe forms, and according to clinical data, it would also reduce by 50% the number of contagious people among those vaccinated.

Good news, especially as France has taken an option of 45 to 60 million doses with this laboratory.

Enough to vaccinate almost as many French people as with the first 2 injections.