Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine's Vials Contain Multiple Doses

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on April 1, 2021, two revisions regarding the number of vaccine doses per vial available for the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine.

The first revision clarifies the number of doses per vial for the currently available vials, in that the maximum number of extractable doses is 11, with a range of 10-11 doses.

The second revision authorizes the availability of an additional multi-dose vial. Each vial contains a maximum of 15 doses, with a range of 13-15 doses that can potentially be extracted.

“Both of these revisions positively impact the supply of Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine, which will help provide more vaccine doses to communities and allow shots to get into arms more quickly. Ultimately, more vaccines getting to the public in a timely manner should help bring an end to the pandemic more rapidly,” stated Peter Marks, M.D., Ph.D., director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, in a press release.

Depending on the type of syringes and needles used to extract each dose, there may not be sufficient volume to extract more than 10 doses from the vial containing a maximum of 11 doses or more than 13 doses from the vial containing a maximum of 15 doses, says the FDA.

Because the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine does not contain preservatives, any further remaining product that does not constitute a full dose should not be pooled from multiple vials to create one full dose. 

The vaccine dosing regimen remains unchanged; the vaccine is administered as a two-dose series, 0.5 mL each dose, one month apart.

The FDA is an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that protects public health by assuring the safety, effectiveness, and security of human and veterinary drugs, vaccines, and other biological products for human use and medical devices.