The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is due to discuss at an extraordinary meeting on Thursday 1 September 2022 the possible approval of two eligible vaccines: the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and the Moderna vaccine. Vaccines targeting the Omicron variant are eagerly awaited by European countries so they can launch booster campaigns ahead of a dangerous new spike in Covid-19 cases this winter. “The purpose of the meeting is to complete the evaluation of the two applications, if possible,” the EMA from Amsterdam said in a statement. “We will announce the results of the meeting on September 1,” she said.
fall assertion
The two so-called “bivalent” vaccines, which could be green-lit by the EMA on Thursday, target the original coronavirus strain that emerged in China in 2019 and an earlier sub-variant of Omicron BA.1. However, they do not target the infectious BA.4 and BA.5 lines of the Omicron variant, which have become the world’s dominant strains in recent months. However, the EMA recently said it is seeking approval “as early as the fall” of a Pfizer/BioNTech Covid vaccine targeting the two Omicron sub-variants BA.4 and BA.5.
U.S. health authorities on Wednesday approved a new version of Pfizer and Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine specifically for the BA.4 and BA.5 lines of the Omicron variant. The UK approved Omicron’s Moderna vaccine against Omicron’s BA.1 strain in mid-August.
New wave
Member states of the European Union are currently still using the same coronavirus vaccines that were approved two years ago for use against the original strain of the virus. They offer some protection against Omicron and its sub-variants, which are less harmful but more contagious than the original strain, but the world is waiting for more targeted and effective vaccines, fearing a new wave this winter.
U.S. health authorities on Wednesday approved a new version of Pfizer and Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine specifically for the BA.4 and BA.5 lines of the Omicron variant. (POOL/AFP/Archives – Eugene Hoshiko)
Omicron and its sub-variants dominated throughout 2022, quickly taking the place of the previous Alpha and Delta variants. Sub-options BA.4 and BA.5 are largely responsible for the wave of new cases in Europe and the United States in recent months. All variants of Omicron tend to have a milder course of the disease, as they settle less in the lungs and more in the upper nasal passages, causing symptoms such as fever, fatigue, and loss of smell.
The EMA said its review of the adapted Pfizer and Moderna vaccines focused on data from laboratory studies and immune response tests against the parent strain and against the Omicron variant. The agency said the matched vaccines in Thursday’s study “more closely match the parent strain and the BA.1 Omicron sub-variant.”