Corona Pandemic: US approval for Moderna vaccine | tagesschau.de



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It is the second corona vaccine to receive approval in the US: The FDA approved the immunization with the vaccine from the manufacturer Moderna. The EU wants to decide on the funds in early January.

The US pharmaceutical agency FDA has given emergency approval to the Corona vaccine from the pharmaceutical company Moderna, the FDA announced. The agent can now be used in the US It is the first approval for the Moderna vaccine worldwide; In the US, the vaccine from the Mainz company Biontech and its US partner Pfizer had already received emergency approval.

The use of the preparation could already begin on Monday, government officials had already declared in the previous days. They hoped that nearly six million doses of vaccines could be distributed in the country immediately after approval. According to the company, 20 million units could be available in the US before the end of the year. For complete immune protection, two of these are required for each vaccinated person within 28 days.

Congratulations from politics

“Congratulations, the Moderna vaccine is now available,” US President Donald Trump tweeted minutes after the FDA made the statement. His chosen successor, Joe Biden, also spoke of good news. But he also emphasized “the enormous challenge of vaccinating hundreds of millions of Americans.” The United States had supported the Moderna vaccine research with $ 2.5 billion, and the National Institutes of Health also participated in the development.

Also an RNA vaccine

The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company expects to produce 100 to 125 million doses of the vaccine called “mRNA-1273” in the first three months of next year. Of these, 15 to 25 million should be available outside the US Overall, the group hopes to be able to manufacture up to 1 billion doses of vaccines worldwide by 2021. A decision will be made in the EU on January 6 .

The Biontech and Pfizer vaccine has been used in the US since Monday, but it requires more complex cooling than the Moderna preparation. Both are called RNA vaccines and contain genetic information about the pathogen, from which the body produces a viral protein. The goal of vaccination is to stimulate the body to produce antibodies against this protein to intercept viruses before they enter cells and multiply.

Studies show high effectiveness

Moderna announced in late November, based on its pivotal phase III study, that its vaccine was 94.1 percent effective. According to a publication in the “New England Journal of Medicine,” data from a Phase I study also showed that the immune response triggered by the vaccine was clearly detectable in the blood for several months. The result could indicate that the Moderna vaccine offers protection against Covid-19 for a longer period of time. But that is not a test.

There were only minor side effects in the tests; however, because the trial period lasted only a few months, there is still no longer-term data on the safety of the preparation and detailed information on other population groups.

Skepticism about vaccines was feared

Therefore, experts fear that many people do not want to be vaccinated due to skepticism about vaccines developed in record time. To increase confidence, the vice president of the United States, Mike Pence, had been vaccinated with the substance Biontech Pfizer yesterday in front of the cameras. Biden also wants to get publicly vaccinated soon. Trump, on the other hand, has repeatedly stated that he considers himself “immune” after his corona infection in October.

The Tagesschau reported on this issue on December 19, 2020 at 9:00 am


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