AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine wins EU nod as a booster shot
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A panel of experts of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has recommended the use of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Anglo-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca (NASDAQ:AZN) as a booster shot, the regulator announced on Thursday.
EMAâs Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) has greenlighted the vector-based shot for adults who have initially received the same vaccine or mRNA-based shots developed by Pfizer (PFE)/BioNTech (BNTX) and Moderna (MRNA) as primary series.
Vaxzevria vaccine developed by AstraZeneca (AZN) in partnership with the University of Oxford is indicated for people aged 18 years and older in the Europe for the prevention of COVID-19.
In the member states of the European Union, only about 52% of the total population have received booster doses, while approximately 73% are fully vaccinated.
Out of more than 1.2 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in the region, Vaxzevria has so far accounted for about 155.9 million doses, compared to ~773.7 million and ~205.4 million doses of Pfizer (PFE)/BioNTech (BNTX) and Moderna (MRNA) vaccines, respectively.
Read: French vaccine maker Valneva SE (VALN) announced on Thursday that the EMA accepted the marketing application for its COVID-19 vaccine.