Moderna Inc’s vaccine against coronavirus has received on Friday the emergency use authorization (EUA) from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, making it the second vaccine to be registered.
The FDA made the announcement following a panel that was held for the agency with outside experts who endorsed the vaccine, and a week after the FDA’s authorization for Pfizer Inc and German partner BioNTech SE.
The vaccines from Pfizer and BioNTech, which share the similar technology, have been on a massive nationwide rollout and been handed out to thousands of U.S. healthcare workers. Moderna is expected to follow the lead of those vaccines.
“With the availability of two vaccines now for the prevention of COVID-19, the FDA has taken another crucial step in the fight against this global pandemic that is causing vast numbers of hospitalizations and deaths in the United States each day,” FDA Commissioner Stephen M. Hahn, M.D, said in a statement.
“It is my hope that all Americans will protect themselves by getting vaccinated when the vaccine becomes available to them. That is how our country will begin to heal and move forward,” top U.S. infectious disease scientist Anthony Fauci said in a statement.
We hope that with vaccines underway that this nightmare can finally come to an end and that 2021 will bring us the new start we desperately need.