(Adds background on booster shots)
By Pushkala Aripaka and Ludwig Burger
Nov 4 (Reuters) - The European Union's drug regulator said
on Thursday it was in discussions with AstraZeneca over
possible authorisation of booster doses of the drugmaker's
COVID-19 vaccine, after it already gave the green light to mRNA
booster shots.
"AstraZeneca is submitting data to us. Actually today they
submitted a new package of data that could support an extension
to use the booster," the European Medicines Agency's head of
vaccines strategy, Marco Cavaleri, said at a briefing.
"We will be discussing with them whether this data could be
sufficient for (authorisation) or whether we need more
evidence," Cavaleri added.
EMA has previously given the go-ahead for vaccines by the
Pfizer-BioNTech alliance and by Moderna
, both based on messenger RNA technology, to be given as
a third booster dose at least six months after a standard
two-shot course.
The focus of booster campaigns in Europe was initially on
the elderly and on those with weakened immune systems but larger
parts of the population have been called on to seek a third
shot.
(Reporting by Pushkala Aripaka in Bengaluru and Ludwig Burger
in Frankfurt; Editing by Edmund Blair and Emelia
Sithole-Matarise)