Bahrain's health agency, NHRA, has granted authorization for emergency use of Valneva's inactivated, adjuvanted Covid vaccine, "VLA2001," the company said in a statement.
Obtaining this authorization follows a process of progressive submission of the dossier to this authority.
Valneva, which had signed an advance purchase agreement with the Kingdom of Bahrain in December for the supply of one million doses of its vaccine, plans to deliver the first batches to it at the end of March.
This vaccine, which uses proven inactivated virus technology, "will offer a vaccine alternative to the Bahraini population and medical community", said Thomas Lingelbach, chairman of the management board of Valneva, quoted in the press release.
Valneva also says it remains "determined to obtain additional regulatory approvals for VLA2001", particularly from European health authorities.
On February 25, the company announced that it had received an initial assessment of its vaccine from the European Medicines Agency's Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP), along with a list of questions.
"Based on this assessment, the CHMP's acceptance of Valneva's responses to a list of questions and the timeline provided by the EMA, Valneva expects to receive, by the end of the first quarter of 2022, a positive recommendation from the CHMP for conditional approval of VLA2001 as a primary series for adults aged 18-55," the company said.
The United Kingdom terminated a contract in September for 100 million doses of this candidate vaccine.
Since then, however, the laboratory has announced an agreement with the European Commission for up to 60 million doses by 2023.
© 2022 AFP