SINGAPORE:The Singapore Health Sciences Authority (HSA) has today granted an interim authorisation for the second COVID-19 vaccine, Moderna, to be used in Singapore.

The interim authorisation is under  the Pandemic Special Access Route (PSAR), which is to facilitate early access to critical novel vaccines, medicines and medical devices during a pandemic.

“The vaccination regime submitted by Moderna requires two doses of the vaccine to be administered 28 days apart,” HSA said in a statement issued, here, today.

It said its review of the available clinical data found that the benefits of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine outweighed the known risks and it demonstrated a high vaccine efficacy of 94 per cent.

Meanwhile, the republic’s Ministry of Health (MOH) said the first shipment of Moderna vaccine was expected to arrive around March 2021, "if there are no disruptions to the shipment.”

“We will progressively roll out the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine for individuals aged 18 years and above when shipments of the vaccine arrive,” said the ministry in a separate statement.

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was the first COVID-19 vaccine being used in Singapore with the first shipment arriving on Dec 21, last year.

As of Feb 2, 2021, the MOH said more than 175,000 individuals have received their first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine here.

About 6,000 of them have also received their second dose, thus completing the full vaccination regimen, said the ministry.

Pfizer-BioNTech requires two doses of vaccine to be administered 21 days apart in individuals aged 16 years and above, except for pregnant women and immunocompromised persons.

-- BERNAMA