The European regulatory agency authorizes the use of the vaccine Pfizer and BioNTech | Vaccine

With the green light from the EMA, the final step is an authorization from the European Commission, which should be delivered later on Monday.

Commission chairwoman Ursula von der Leyen said they would act quickly.

From that moment on, the countries of the European Union will be able to start their campaigns to immunize their populations.

Germany, France, Austria and Italy have already said they intend to start vaccinating on December 27.

Von der Leyen had already said that this should be the start date of the campaigns.

In the United Kingdom, Israel, the United States and Saudi Arabia, the population is already being vaccinated.

Preparations for the start of the campaign take place at the same time that a more transmissible variant of the virus is identified in the UK. Several European countries have closed their borders to travelers originating from the country.

According to the EMA, the vaccine is likely to work for this new variant.

The pandemic killed about 470,000 Europeans. Infections have accelerated in recent months and the economy has worsened as a result.

Governments of different countries have again imposed restrictive measures to try to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

To vaccinate the population en masse, medical students, retired doctors, pharmacists and soldiers were summoned. It is a campaign of unprecedented scale.

There are priority groups to receive the injection: health professionals and elderly people living in nursing homes.

According to plans in most European countries, the general population will not be vaccinated until mid-2021.

The goal is to reach a coverage of 70% of the bloc’s population (around 450 million people in 27 countries).

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