The
World Health Organization chief on Monday welcomed ‘Moderna’ vaccine development
but said maintained that safety norms should not be compromised amidst the encouraging
news around COVID-19 pandemic.

Citing serious
concern about rising cases in many countries, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom
Ghebreyesus said, “This is no time for complacency. This is a dangerous
virus, which can attack every system in the body. Those countries that are
letting the virus run unchecked are playing with fire.”

Moderna vaccine development

US-based
biotechnology giant ‘Moderna’ announced its COVID-19 vaccine’s potency earlier
today, claiming it to be 94.5% effective.

 Stephane Bancel the Modern Inc CEO stated that
the effective results of the COVID-19 vaccine were devised from a clinical
trial conducted on more than 30,000 participants.

Also Read: A vaccine alone won’t end the COVID-19 pandemic: WHO

The National
Institute of Health also affirmed that the Moderna vaccine is safe and
effective in preventing symptomatic COVID-19 in adults according to its
provisional review report.

Earlier this week, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer in collaboration
with German companion BioNTech also announced that its experimental vaccine to
be more than 90% efficient in combating COVID-19 based on the preliminary
observations. 

WHO celebrated the encouraging vaccine news from and commended scientists & partners around the world involved in the development of vaccine.

Also Read: US health expert Anthony Fauci says vaccine ‘cavalry’ is en route but urges vigilance

Adhanom on Monday said that a vaccine alone would not be enough to combat the
pandemic and will act only as a complementary agent.

“Since the beginning of the #COVID19 pandemic, we knew that a
vaccine would be essential for bringing the pandemic under control. But it’s
important to emphasize that a vaccine will complement the other tools we have, not
replace them,” he tweeted.