As the French government seeks to ramp up its lagging Covid-19 vaccination campaign, it faces a tricky challenge: convincing all doctors to back the jabs, even though some share the same hesitations as the general population.
France's national health authority said Friday that it had approved the Covid-19 vaccine produced by Moderna for people 18 and older, clearing the way for a second option in the country's inoculation campaign.
The move follows EU approval for the Moderna vaccine on Wednesday. (AFP)
Aviation regulator DGCA on Friday issued guidelines to all aircraft operators who plan to transport Covid-19 vaccines packed in dry ice to various parts of the country.
Dry ice transforms into carbon dioxide gas at temperatures higher than -78 degrees Celsius under normal atmospheric pressure and therefore it is classified as "dangerous goods" by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), it said. (PTI)
Europe's medicines regulator gave the go ahead on Friday for an extra sixth dose to be extracted from the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine vials, lifting the number of available shots at a time when supplies are short.
EU countries started inoculating people with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine two weeks ago after the European Medicines Agency (EMA) recommended the shot's conditional approval under an authorisation which allows five doses to be extracted from each vial. (Reuters)
Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin will announce new measures next week to curb a surge in coronavirus cases, a senior minister said on Friday, as the country reported its highest daily number of deaths linked to the epidemic.
The Southeast Asian nation has seen a spike in infections since September, with the number of daily reported cases climbing to record highs on two days this week.
Friday's death toll of 16 took total Covid-19 fatalities to 537. The health ministry also reported 2,643 new infections, raising the total number of cases to 131,108.