The European Commission had previously defended the bloc against criticism for its slow rollout, saying that its plans would get the EU past “bumps in the road”.
The EU drug watchdog on Monday postponed the approval of Moderna’s coronavirus shot, despite advancing a special meeting, as criticism is mounting at the bloc’s slow rollout.
The Amsterdam-based European Medicines Agency (EMA) said on Wednesday it will resume talks on whether or not to give the green light for what would be the EU’s second vaccine.
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Under pressure from EU countries to speed up, the regulator had previously accelerated the meeting to decide on approval from January 12 to Wednesday and then again to Monday.
Despite the launch of its vaccination campaign with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, the EU’s progress on December 27 is much slower than in the United States, Great Britain or Israel.
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“The discussion of the EMA’s Human Medicines Committee on the Covid-19 vaccine (by) Moderna has not been concluded today. It will continue on Wednesday, ”the EMA said on Twitter.
“EMA will not make any further announcement today.”
The European Commission had previously defended the bloc against criticism for its slow rollout, saying that its plans would get the EU past “bumps in the road”.
“It is clear that such a complex undertaking always brings difficulties,” spokesman Eric Mamer told journalists.
The Pfizer BioNTech vaccine – developed in Germany – is the only one currently approved for use in the European Union since the EMA accelerated approval on December 21.
The United States is using it alongside the Moderna vaccine, while Britain has also started using one from British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca as of Monday.
EU countries are far behind. France, for example, gave a first shot to just over 500 people. Germany has started immunizing 200,000.
The Netherlands, the last in the EU to start its vaccination program, meanwhile said it was pushing the start of the shots – by two days to Wednesday.
The European Commission stressed that it had bought access to “nearly two billion doses” of six potential vaccines – four times the population of the entire European Union.
In a clinical trial of 30,400 people, the US-based Moderna’s jab was found to be 94.1% effective in preventing Covid-19 compared to a placebo, and performed slightly better in younger adults than older people.
The EMA said last week that the coronavirus vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University, which was approved in Britain on Wednesday, is unlikely to receive a green light in the EU in the next month.
The fact that the watchdog moved from London to Amsterdam after Brexit has in itself commented on how Britain could have acted faster after leaving the EU.