First shipment of Moderna's Covid-19 vaccine arrives in Singapore

The Moderna vaccine is the second Covid-19 vaccine to be approved for use in Singapore. - Reuters

SINGAPORE (The Straits Times/ANN): The first shipment of Moderna's Covid-19 vaccine arrived in Singapore on Wednesday afternoon (Feb 17).

It is another step forward in the Republic's bid to control the Covid-19 outbreak.

Sources told The Straits Times that the vaccine was ferried by a Singapore Airlines plane that took off from Brussels in Belgium and transited at Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. The plane was expected to touch down at Changi Airport at about 2.15pm but arrived ahead of schedule.

The Ministry of Health initially said on Feb 3 that the first shipment of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine would arrive around March, provided there were no disruptions to the shipment schedule.

The vaccine is the second Covid-19 vaccine to be approved for use in Singapore after the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which was approved in mid-December.

The Health Sciences Authority said on Feb 3 that its review of the available clinical data found that the Moderna vaccine demonstrated a high efficacy of 94 per cent, with the benefits outweighing the risks.

This means that there is a 94 per cent reduction of symptomatic Covid-19 disease in a vaccinated group of people, compared with a similarly sized group of unvaccinated people, it said. - The Straits Times/Asia News Network