Germany: EU could OK combined COVID vaccines next month

Germany’s health minister said Friday that European Union drug regulators may authorize the use of vaccines that are each effective against two variants of the coronavirus.
German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said he expected the European Medicines Agency to meet Sept. 1 to consider a vaccine that would provide protection against the original virus and the so-called omicron variant, also known as BA.1.
Lauterbach said, the EU agency would likely meet again on Sept. 27 to review a combined vaccine against the original virus and the BA.5 variant that is responsible for the latest global surge inCOVID-19 cases.
He said, Germany has procured sufficient amounts of both vaccines and would be able to start rolling them out a day after they received authorization.