EMA Approves Moderna Vaccine

As was largely expected, the European Medicines Agency has announced that it has approved the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, the second vaccine to be approved by the bloc.

• Like the already-approved Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, the Moderna jab uses mRNA technology, rather than the customary vaccines that give the patient a dose of a weakened virus (as the AstraZeneca/Oxford University jab does).
• As mentioned in the 1149GMT bullet, Germany already has a large number of Moderna vaccines on order according to its health minister. The European Commission, which ostensibly is taking the lead on vaccine procurement, is likely to face increasing pressures from member states keen to roll out the vaccine ASAP with the finite number of vaccines it has ordered for distribution across the bloc.