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A European drug regulator official on Tuesday cautioned that the COVID-19 pandemic was still ongoing, as countries across the continent prepare to rollout subvariant adapted vaccines for a fall and winter immunization campaign.
“We in Europe still consider the pandemic as ongoing,” the European Medicines Agency’s (EMA) Chief Medical Officer Steffen Thirstrup said in a press briefing.
“It is important that member states prepare for rollout of the vaccines and especially the adapted vaccines to prevent further spread of this disease in Europe,” Thirstrup added.
The EMA official’s comments come just two days after U.S. President Joe Biden said that the “pandemic is over” during a 60 Minutes interview.
Biden’s remarks had sent shares of COVID-19 vaccine developers falling on Monday, including those of Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA), BioNTech (NASDAQ:BNTX) and Vaxart (NASDAQ:VXRT).
The EMA is gearing up to make Omicron BA.4/5 subvariant adapted vaccines available in the European Union (EU), having recommended approval of Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) and BTNX’s bivalent vaccine while aiming to start a review of MRNA’s shot by the end of this month.
As of Sept. 14, there have been nearly 167M coronavirus cases and about 1.1M deaths in the EU/European Economic Area, according to agency data.
