MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 08th January, 2021) The European medicines Agency (EMA) clarified on Friday that one vial of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine (Comirnaty) contains six doses rather than five, as previously believed.
The EMA authorized the vaccine's use in the European Union on December 21. Earlier on Friday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced that the total contracted amount of doses was 600 million, enough to cover 380 million people, or 80 percent of the bloc's population.
"EMA's human medicines committee has recommended updating the PDF iconproduct information for Comirnaty to clarify that each vial contains 6 doses of the vaccine," the regulator said in a press release.
The agency specified that in order to extract six full doses of 35 microliters (0.0012 oz) each from one bottle, low dead-volume syringes and/or needles should be used. If the remaining amount after the fifth dose is not enough for a full sixth dose, the vial should be discarded, according to the press release.
"There should be no pooling from multiple vials to make up a full dose, and any unused vaccine should be discarded 6 hours after dilution," the agency added.
The dosing regimen of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is two doses per person at least 21 days apart.
Aside from Pfizer-BioNTech, the European Union uses the coronavirus vaccine by US company Moderna, authorized by the EMA on Wednesday.
