German health minister on likely new COVID jabs

Germany's Health MinisterKarl Lauterbach saidthat European Union drug regulators may authorize the use of vaccines that are each effective against two variants of the coronavirus.

He said he expected the European Medicines Agency to meet Sept. 1 to consider a vaccine that would provide protection against the original virus and the so-called omicron variant, also known as BA.1.

He added that the EU agency would likely meet again on Sept. 27 to review a combined vaccine against the original virus and the BA.5 variant that is responsible for the latest global surge in COVID-19 cases.

Germany has procured sufficient amounts of both vaccines and would be able to start rolling them out a day after they received authorization.