Covid-19: UK approves version of Moderna vaccine effective against Omicron
A dose of the Moderna laboratory's Covid-19 vaccine being administered.
AP - Rogelio V. Solis
Text by: RFI Follow
1 min
The British medicines regulator announced on Monday August 15 that it had approved a new generation of Moderna's Covid-19 vaccine.
The laboratory claims to be the first in the world to release a vaccine targeting the Omicron variant in particular. This version targets the Omicron variant in particular.
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This is a world first, according to the Moderna laboratory: a new version of the vaccine against Covid-19 has just been authorized.
The UK becomes the first country to approve a vaccine partially targeting Omicron, the most common variant in Europe.
This formula consists of a “bivalent” booster dose, that is to say that it targets half the original strain of the virus, and half the Omicron variant.
This “
provokes a strong immune response
” against both, including Omicron
's BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants
, as the UK drug regulator says.
We are pleased to announce that we have approved the UK's first bivalent COVID-19 booster vaccine, made by @moderna_tx.
For more information see: https://t.co/MLXObQqyUt pic.twitter.com/VNelnGBfVD
— MHRAgovuk (@MHRAgovuk) August 15, 2022
This version of the vaccine "
has been approved for booster doses for adults
", with side effects found to be "
typically mild
" and similar to those already known.
The European Commission has announced that it is reserving 15 million additional doses of this version of the vaccine, subject to its approval by the European Medicines Agency (EMA).
The United Kingdom is one of the countries most affected in Europe by the pandemic with nearly 180,000 deaths.
The country regularly experiences large waves of contamination but was one of the first in Europe to lift all restrictions last winter.
► To read also: Covid-19: two studies conclude that the pandemic started in the Wuhan market
(
With AFP
)
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