UK becomes first country to authorize Pfizer coronavirus vaccine and rollout due next week

UK becomes first country to authorize Pfizer coronavirus vaccine and rollout due next week

Britain on Wednesday granted emergency approval to the coronavirus vaccine from pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and the German company BioNTech, becoming the first Western country to authorize mass inoculations that could lead to an end of the pandemic.

Drug regulators in Britain have a global reputation for being tough but fast, employing a system of continuous "rolling review" of incoming data from drug companies. But to see a potentially lifesaving shot invented, tested and approved in less than a year smashes all speed records.

The United Kingdom has become the first Western nation to authorize a Covid-19 vaccine, a landmark moment in the coronavirus pandemic that paves the way for the first doses to be rolled out across the country next week.

"Help is on the way," Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced Wednesday morning, after UK regulators granted emergency authorization for a vaccine made by US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech.

A final analysis of the Phase 3 trial of the vaccine shows it was 95% effective in preventing infections, even in older adults, and caused no serious safety concerns, Pfizer said last month.

The announcement means the UK has vaulted past the United States and European Union in the race to approve a vaccine, months into a pandemic that has killed almost 1.5 million people worldwide.

"We believe it is really the start of the end of the pandemic," BioNTech CEO Ugur Sahin told CNN in an exclusive interview on Wednesday. Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla hailed the emergency authorization as "a historic moment in the fight against Covid-19."

 

The UK has ordered 40 million doses of the vaccine -- enough to vaccinate 20 million people. Hancock told the BBC that an initial 800,000 doses would be delivered from Pfizer's facilities in Belgium to the UK next week, and "many millions" more before the end of the year.

Elderly people in care homes, those who care for them, health workers and other vulnerable people will be top of the priority list.

Australian Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg says Australia's economy would be $34 billion better off if the coronavirus vaccine rollout can be completed six months earlier than expected.

He told News Breakfast that the Federal Budget had modelling for different scenarios, on the back of news that the UK had approved the use of the Pfizer-developed vaccine.