Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: The first vaccine for the cure of Covid-19 will be available from next week in the United Kingdom which, on Wednesday, granted an emergency approval to the shot developed by global pharmaceuticals major Pfizer Inc., and its German partner BioNTech SE, media reported.
The USA, struggling with the transition of presidency from incumbent Donald Trump to President-elect Joe Biden, and the European Union, is yet to approve a vaccine against Covid-19 which has claimed over 1.4 million lives and infected more than 64 million across 200-plus countries in the last one year. In India, the pandemic has claimed over 138,000 lives and sickened 9.4 million others.
Pfizer and BioNTech had, earlier this week, sought regulatory clearance in the European Union. In the U.S., a Food and Drug Administration panel will meet on December 10 to discuss the vaccine issue.
Dozens of pharmaceutical companies the world over, including three in India, are racing against time to launch a vaccine in the coming weeks.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who personally inspected the three facilities in Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and Pune last Saturday, is expected to discuss the issue in an all-party conference on Friday.
London’s emergency authorization clears the way for the deployment of a vaccine as part of the global efforts to roll back the virus. BioNTech had said recently the vaccine, relying on novel technology called messenger RNA, was 95% effective in a final analysis of clinical-trial data, according to media reports.
The vaccine will be available in Britain from next week, the government said. London has ordered enough doses of the two-shot vaccine to immunize 20 million people. The companies also have deals to supply hundreds of millions of shots to Europe, the U.S., Japan, and elsewhere.
The U.K.’s regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, said on Wednesday that the vaccine “met its strict standards of safety, quality, and effectiveness.”
London had assured that it would swiftly approve a vaccine to protect its population, and doctors across the country were put on standby for a potential rollout. For the government, it is an opportunity to make up for the missteps during the pandemic as Britain’s death toll nears 60,000.
Several other companies, including, Moderna Inc. and the University of Oxford’s partner, AstraZeneca Plc, are also forging ahead to launch their own vaccines at the earliest.
China has authorized its three front-runners for emergency use. Russia cleared a vaccine known as Sputnik V in August, while a second inoculation was approved in October, even as the last stage of trials to establish safety and efficacy are still taking place, the reports added.