UK Becomes First Country To Approve Pfizer's Coronavirus Vaccine
LONDON (CBS NEWS) — Britain has become the first country in the West to approve a COVID-19 vaccine for public use.
The U.K. Department of Health and Social Care confirmed in a statement to British news agencies that the vaccine developed jointly by American drugmaker Pfizer and Germany's BioNTech would be distributed starting next week. Pfizer was the first of three major Western pharmaceutical companies to apply in both the U.S. and Europe for emergency use authorization.
"The Government has today accepted the recommendation from the independent Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to approve Pfizer/BioNTech's Covid-19 vaccine for use," a Department of Health and Social Care spokesman told the Press Association of Britain. The spokesman said the emergency use authorization followed "months of rigorous clinical trials and a thorough analysis of the data by experts at the MHRA who have concluded that the vaccine has met its strict standards of safety, quality and effectiveness."
In line with planning in the U.S., British front-line healthcare workers, care home residents, the very elderly and people with underlying conditions that make them particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 complications are expected to get the first doses of the vaccine. Pfizer's vaccine, like the Oxford and Moderna formulas, requires two doses about a month apart.
