The European Union’s medicines watchdog on Wednesday approved a second coronavirus vaccine, in a relief to struggling European countries as the world reached a grim new record of 15,700 deaths in the last 24 hours.

The Moderna vaccine is now set to join Pfizer-BioNTech’s jab for use in the 27-nation EU, where governments are grappling with soaring caseloads and slow roll-outs of the vaccines already available. “Good news for our efforts to bring more Covid-19 vaccines to Europeans!” European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen tweeted.

The breakthrough came as more than 15,700 Covid-19 deaths around the world were registered in the past 24 hours, according to a count by AFP – a new record.

The United States, the world’s worst-hit country, logged a record 3,936 daily coronavirus deaths in a separate tally maintained by the US-based Johns Hopkins University.

In Portugal, health authorities reported 10,000 new cases in 24 hours in the nation of just 10 million people.