By Chris King • Published: 18 Jan 2022 • 0:28
Moderna developing annual joint flu and Covid vaccine. image: Moderna Press
In his speech at the Davos Forum on Monday, January 17, Stephane Bancel, CEO of the American pharmaceutical company Moderna announced that his company is hoping to complete the development by the end of 2030 of a vaccine that can be used to jointly combat Cocid-19, and the common flu.
“It would be an annual booster dose, so that people avoid having to be inoculated two or three times in winter,” explained Bancel. He highlighted his belief that it is necessary to reduce the current high frequency of booster doses to prevent people from rejecting the vaccination.
Bancel is the head of one of only two firms to have developed Covid-19 vaccines with the new messenger RNA technology (the other is Pfizer-BioNTech). He stressed that since November, his company has been working on a dose aimed especially at combating the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, which is already dominant in the world.
“The laboratories will finish this work in the coming weeks, and will share the results with the regulatory authorities”, the CEO said.
Dr Anthony Fauci, the US Government’s main health adviser, indicated in the same forum that the current situation in which booster doses are considered every time a new variant of the coronavirus emerges, is not optimal. A universal vaccine that can serve against any evolution of SARS-CoV-2 is required, he suggested, as reported by diariodesevilla.es.
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Originally from Wales, Chris spent years on the Costa del Sol before moving to the Algarve where he is a web reporter for The Euro Weekly News covering international and Spanish national news. Got a news story you want to share? Then get in touch at editorial@euroweeklynews.com
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