The European Commission has authorized two Covid-19 vaccines adapted to provide protection against the Omicron variant currently dominant in Europe, Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides tweeted on Friday.
The announcement came a day after the European Medicines Agency (EMA) gave the green light for the vaccines produced by BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna.
The commission had taken the decision to licence the vaccines a few hours after the EMA had cleared them, Kyriakides said.
"More authorizations should be coming soon, starting the rollout in our member states vaccination campaigns," she tweeted on Friday.
In its statement on Thursday, the Amsterdam-based EMA said: "These vaccines are adapted versions of the original vaccines Comirnaty (Pfizer/BioNTech) and Spikevax (Moderna) to target the Omicron BA.1 subvariant in addition to the original strain of SARS-CoV-2."
While the BA.1 subvariant is declining in Germany, authorities believe that the new vaccine will also offer better protection against the BA.5 subvariant that is currently dominant.
