The U.S. pharmaceutical company Moderna announced Thursday that it has begun a program to develop a single-dose vaccine that combines a booster against covid-19 and another against influenza.

"Today we announced the first step in our new respiratory vaccine program to develop a single-dose vaccine that combines a booster against covid-19 and a booster against influenza," the company said in a statement.

The company last week submitted the first results of its clinical trials to the health and European authorities for the evaluation of a third booster dose against covid-19 in order to obtain its authorization.

"We are pleased to have applied for a conditional marketing authorization from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) for our booster (vaccine) candidate at the 50 microgram dose level," the pharmaceutical company said in a statement released last Friday after applying for European approval.

Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said that additional studies and analyses "show that a 50 microgram booster dose" of its covid-19 vaccine "elicits strong antibody responses against the delta variant" of the coronavirus.

The company explained that the second phase of the clinical trial was modified to include the third dose administered "approximately" six months after the second.

Last month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) began recommending the use of a third dose for people with weakened immune systems, such as organ transplant patients, people with HIV, or some cancer patients.

Recently, U.S. officials also announced plans to begin offering the booster dose to the general population who received the mRNA vaccines (Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech) beginning the week of September 20 for those who received the initial two doses more than eight months ago.

This, however, has not yet been approved by the FDA, nor by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

Lusa Agency