Moderna

Japan's Kanagawa prefecture said it has found another vial of Moderna Inc's COVID-19 vaccine suspected of containing a foreign substance and has put the rest of the lot on hold.

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In a statement on Aug. 31, prefectural authorities said a pharmacist found several black particles in one vial upon checking for foreign substances before the vaccine's use.

A contaminant found in a batch of Moderna Inc's COVID-19 vaccines delivered to Japan is believed to be a metallic particle, Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported, citing sources at the health ministry.

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Japan announced it had suspended the use of some 1.63 million Covid-19 Moderna jabs after the domestic distributor received reports of contaminants inside the doses. Both country's officials and representatives of the pharmaceutical company said that no safety or efficacy issues had been identified but still the suspension was just a precaution, Reuters elaborated.

The efficacy of anti-COVID-19 vaccines of Pfizer and Moderna companies has decreased from 91 to 66 percent since the Delta variant of the novel coronavirus that causes this infectious disease has become dominant in the United States. This brcame clear from data published by a Federal health agency, Frrance Press reported.

The World Health Organization said on July 9 that there was a "likely causal association" between coronavirus vaccines using mRNA technology and "very rare" heart inflammations, but the benefits still outweigh the risks.

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday listed the Moderna coronavirus vaccine for emergency use, adding another shot to its arsenal in the fight against the coronavirus.

When will children be able to get COVID-19 vaccines?

It depends on the child's age, but some teenagers could be rolling up their sleeves before too long.

Europe's medicines regulator is planning to speed up assessments of any Covid-19 vaccines that are modified to protect against variants of the virus, the head of the agency's Covid-19 task-force told Reuters on Friday.

There is not enough data to say for sure "how well the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine would work" in people over 55, and the reason for this is that most of the participants in the manufacturer's preliminary studies are between 18 and 55 years old.

The research of the Greek scientist Grigoris Grigoriadis 50 years ago laid the foundations for the technology of today's Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. The photo shows Grigoriadis with biochemist Brenda Ryman in a laboratory at the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine in London.