Francisco Ramos said that it is planned that in Portugal "8,000 doses arrive in the week of January 11 and 11,000 in the week of January 25", which will be part of the first phase of the vaccination plan that began with the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccines..

In a statement, the President of Infarmed, Rui Santos Ivo, stressed that the Moderna vaccine "reinforces the availability of more vaccines in the national vaccination plan and throughout the European Union, in order to combat the Covid-19 pandemic".

The European Commission authorised the marketing of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine in the European Union (EU), following the endorsement by the European regulator of the second drug against the new coronavirus authorised in the EU.

The Commission states that this authorisation, the last formal step before the entry of the vaccine into the EU, "follows a positive scientific recommendation based on a thorough evaluation of the safety, efficacy and quality of the vaccine by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and is approved by the Member States".

A large clinical trial promoted by Moderna, involving 30,000 people, revealed that the vaccine of this US pharmacist was effective in preventing Covid-19 in people over 18 years of age, with an overall effectiveness of 94.1 percent and 90.9 percent in severe cases.