The European Medicines Agency said on Tuesday that two Covid vaccines targeting Omicron subvariants can now be used for first injections, not just as a booster.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) had approved the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines against types BA.4 and BA.5 in September and October respectively, but only in people who had already received their first dose.
The Amsterdam-sitting regulator stressed that its emergency working group had decided that the two vaccines could now “be used for primary vaccination.”
Booster safety ‘comparable to original mRNA vaccines’
These vaccines are currently licensed as boosters only and can be used for adults and children.
The decision was made after reviewing laboratory studies of the immune response to so-called “bivalent” vaccines, which target new types of Omicron, as well as the original Covid virus that emerged in China in late 2019. The safety of the Withdrawal was “comparable to that of the original mRNA vaccines,” he added.
European nations were keen to quickly adopt the new generation of vaccines so they could launch booster campaigns and target people who had not yet been vaccinated.
While earlier “worrying variants” like the Alpha and Delta eventually died out, Omicron and its sublines have dominated through 2022.
In particular, the types BA.4 and BA.5 have contributed to an increase in the number of new cases of the disease in Europe and the United States in recent months.
All the variants of Omicron ont tend to be translated by an evolution plus lens of the maladie car ils s’installent moins dans les poumons et plus dans les voies aériennes supérieures, provoquant des symptômes tells que la fièvre, la fatigue et la parte d ‘smell.
Source: BFM TV
