Moderna’s jab being reviewed for WHO’s emergency listing

GENEVA: Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine was being reviewed on Monday by technical experts for the World Health Organization’s (WHO) possible emergency-use listing, a WHO spokesman has said.

“Moderna is being reviewed at the TAG (technical advisory group) meeting today,” WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier said. A decision on the US drugmaker’s vaccine was expected in one to four days, he said.

So far, Covid-19 vaccines made by Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson have received the WHO’s approval, which is a signal to national regulatory authorities on a product’s safety and efficacy.

EU may allow vaccinated US tourists this summer The EU plans to open its doors this summer to US tourists who’ve been fully vaccinated against Covid-19, The New York Times has reported, citing the head of the European bloc’s executive body.

The change, which would come under certain conditions, would end the bloc’s more than one-year ban on non-essential travel from most countries to limit the spread of the virus.

“The Americans, as far as I can see, use European Medicines Agency-approved vaccines,” Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, was cited by the paper as saying. “This will enable free movement and the travel to the EU.”

The head of the World Trade Organization (WTO) has urged rich nations to export more Covid-19 vaccines, singling out the UK and the US as she reiterated the need to ensure poor countries aren’t left behind if the world wants to get through the pandemic. “Vaccine nationalism and inequity doesn’t work,” WTO director-general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said.