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“The vaccine will be available throughout the UK from next week. This is very good news.” It is the first approval of the “BNT162b2” vaccine worldwide.
“The European Medicines Agency EMA is responsible for approval in the EU,” said Clemens Auer, special representative of the Austrian Ministry of Health and co-chair of the purchasing group of the 27 EU states. On Tuesday, the EMA announced the approval for December 29. The EMA is careful when examining and evaluating documents and there is no reason to pressure the approval authority. “In Austria, in any case, we are prepared to start implementing the first vaccines in homes for the elderly and elderly with residents and their nursing staff and in hospitals with health staff,” Auer told the APA in writing. .
“As gratifying as the current progress in the development of Covid-19 vaccines is, we are now faced with the challenge of producing 1.4 billion doses of vaccines just for European needs, and in the shortest time possible, because everyone wants the vaccine. at the same time. “said Pharmig Secretary General Alexander Herzog. Pharmig is the association for the Austrian pharmaceutical industry. Given the high demand, some companies would have started producing large quantities of their candidate vaccines at their own risk. “To this end, production capacities have been expanded, new manufacturing technologies have been implemented, and production partnerships have been established around the world with specially certified production partners,” Herzog said, according to the announcement. “These predictive measures are crucial for the rapid availability of potential vaccines.”
The vaccine from the German biotech company and its American partner Pfizer is currently considered one of the most promising means of containing the coronavirus. Nearly 1.5 million people who tested positive for Corona have died worldwide.
Italy wants to vaccinate from the end of January
The vaccine is not yet available for widespread use in most parts of the world. China and Russia, among others, have long vaccinated certain population groups. The Italian government is working on a large-scale vaccination plan with which millions of Italians will be vaccinated against the coronavirus from the end of January. The government plans to make 202 million doses of vaccines available in the first quarter of 2021, said Italian Health Minister Roberto Speranza. Biontech and Pfizer emphasized that their vaccine was approved based on data from a large clinical trial involving tens of thousands of subjects.
The UK Medicines Agency has approved an emergency approval, Hancock said. Delivery must begin immediately. Biontech and Pfizer have agreed to deliver 40 million doses of vaccines in the UK by December and next year. The 40 million doses of vaccine can protect 20 million people; the drug must be administered twice. Britain has a population of just under 67 million. According to the Ministry of Health, the army is helping with logistics.
The vaccination committee decides
The vaccination committee will decide which people should get vaccinated first, Hancock said. In all likelihood, they will be residents of nursing homes and for the elderly, as well as employees of the health sector. “There is always interesting news, but it is really important,” said Danny Altmann, professor of immunology at Imperial College London. Just eleven months after the virus was discovered, there is now an effective means of fighting it. “It’s really heroic.”
The UK has been particularly hard hit by the pandemic and many of the chronically underfunded hospitals have already reached their capacity limits. According to the Health Ministry, nearly 60,000 people in the UK have already died from Covid-19. A large number of unreported cases are expected. Prime Minister Boris Johnson is accused of reacting too late and inadequately to the crisis in the crown.
Pfizer said the emergency approval in the UK was a historic moment in the fight against the virus. “This approval is a goal we have been working towards since we first announced that science will triumph,” said Albert Bourla, CEO of Pfizer. The company expects more approvals in the near future and is working flat out to make the vaccine available around the world as quickly as possible.
Application for conditional marketing authorization
On Tuesday, Biontech and Pfizer submitted a request for a conditional marketing authorization to the European Medicines Agency (EMA). If the EMA gives the green light, the vaccine could be used in the EU before the end of the year. The agency announced Tuesday that test results should be available no later than December 29. The EU has already signed a framework agreement to buy up to 300 million doses of the vaccine. By January 12, the EMA also wants to decide on the Covid-19 vaccine from the American biotech group Moderna, which has also submitted a request for conditional market approval to the authorities. About 50 projects are currently in human clinical trials.
In early November, Biontech and Pfizer were the first companies in the world to announce positive results of the relevant study for approval with a corona vaccine. According to a final analysis published two weeks ago, the vaccine showed 95 percent protection against Covid-19.
