COVID-19 vaccines developed by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna appear to be effective against the new Indian strain, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said on Wednesday.

Data reviewed by the European regulator on the efficacy of mRNA vaccines Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna against variant discovered in India are "encouraging", EMA vaccine strategy manager Marco Cavaleri said at a press conference.

But he added that the EMA was awaiting additional data from India, where a version of the AstraZeneca vaccine is being administered. "So far, overall, we are pretty confident that the vaccines will be effective against this variant," he said