FDA Advisors Recommend Authorizing Pfizer Vaccine: What’s Next?

(CNN) –– The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Advisory Committee on Vaccines and Related Biologicals voted Thursday to recommend that the agency grant emergency use authorization to the vaccine against the coronavirus from Pfizer and BioNTech.

Seventeen members voted in favor, four against and one abstained.

Now, this vote does not mean that Pfizer’s vaccine will be licensed immediately.

The FDA must now decide whether to accept the recommendation, but has signaled that it will issue the emergency use authorization for Pfizer’s vaccine.

Then the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) should meet to decide whether to recommend that the vaccine be used. This panel has a meeting scheduled for Friday and expects to vote during another meeting, scheduled for Sunday.

Officials from the White House Operation Warp Speed ​​have also spoken out. They indicated that they will begin shipping the vaccine within 24 hours of FDA clearance.

FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biologics Advisory Committee is also scheduled to meet again next week to discuss the emergency use request for Moderna’s vaccine.