VLA2001, a new COVID-19 vaccine developed by Valneva, a French biotechnology company, using traditional methods, has now received conditional marketing authorization in the United Kingdom. Could it prove more acceptable to the vaccine hesitant, be more effective against new variants, or improve the situation in low-income countries? Medical News Today looks at the evidence.
With more than 6.2 million deaths and close to 510 million cases confirmed worldwide by the World Health Organization (WHO), COVID-19 has wrought a heavy toll.
In high-income countries, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, although case rates remain high, vaccination has been effective in reducing hospitalizations and deaths.
Around the world, COVID-19 vaccines have been and are being authorized. Across European countries, five vaccines have gained use authorization: Pfizer, Moderna, Oxford-AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson (Janssen), and Novavax.
In the U.S., Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson have so far received authorization or approval for use.
Now, the U.K. Medicines Regulatory and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has granted regulatory approval for the use of a new COVID-19 vaccine, developed by the French biotechnology company Valneva.
This vaccine, VLA2001, uses a method that may be considered more traditional — an inactivated virus — as used in vaccines for polio, hepatitis A, rabies, and influenza.
Valneva, like other COVID-19 vaccines such as Sinopharm, uses...
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