Qatar will be securing the vaccine once it is available.
US-based drug manufacturer, Moderna, reveals that its vaccine has shown 94.5% effectiveness, the company announced on Monday.
During the trial phase, Moderna tested the vaccine on 30,000 people in the US, half of them received two doses four weeks apart. Last month, Moderna said that it was aiming to produce 20 million doses of its vaccine by the end of the year, in hopes of reaching its 500 million-to-1 billion goal in 2021.
The announcement comes at least a week since US pharmaceutical giant, Pfizer, and German biotech firm, BioNTech, announced that their coronavirus vaccine was more than 90% effective in preventing COVID-19 among those without evidence of prior infection.
Read also: COVID-19 vaccine ‘more than 90% effective’
Qatar has also signed an agreement with Moderna to purchase its potential COVID-19 vaccine once it is available.
“Negotiating early and securing a number of agreements enhances our chances of getting sufficient quantities of the vaccine early,” said Dr. Abdullatif Al-Khal, chair of the national COVID-19 health group and head of infectious diseases at Hamad Medical Corporation.
Dr. Al-Khal also announced in October that the country signed an agreement with Pfizer and BioNTech to supply residents and citizens with the vaccine for free.
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