The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday authorized American drugmaker Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use in the United States. It is the second COVID-19 vaccine that has received FDA's emergency use authorization (EUA) in the country, following the first one developed by American drugmaker Pfizer in partnership with German company BioNTech. The EUA allows the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine to be distributed in the United States for use in individuals 18 years of age and older, said the FDA in a statement. Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine is administered as a series of two doses, one month apart. The approval came a day after a key FDA advisory committee recommended authorizing the vaccine for emergency use. The United States has recorded more than 17.41 million cases with over 313,000 related deaths as of Friday evening, according to the real-time count kept by Johns Hopkins University.
