Moderna Covid-19 vaccine gets USFDA nod for emergency use amid pandemic surge
Ongoing studies of the Moderna two-shot vaccine show more than 94 percent effectiveness and strong protection among older adults.;
New York: US regulators approved a second Covid-19 vaccine in a single week's time, greenlighting a shot developed by Moderna Inc. and the National Institutes of Health for emergency use for Americans 18 years and older.
The Moderna approval comes exactly a week after the US Food and Drug Administration okayed a shot from Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech. Moderna expects to have 85-100 million shots available in the US in the first three months of 2021. Vaccinations are set to begin Monday.
The US government has ordered at least 200 million Moderna doses at a time when the country is getting hammered by the pandemic winter surge. Deaths in the US are at record highs, crossing 3,000 per day at a steady clip.
The virus, which originated in China a year ago, has killed more than 3,12,000 Americans in 11 months. New cases in the US are running at over 2,16,000 per day on average.
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is now being administered to millions of healthcare workers and in nursing homes, which have borne the maximum burden of the US outbreak.
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