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The authorization to distribute the vaccine opens the possibility of launching the first vaccines in the bloc of 27 nations immediately after Christmas.
EC President Ursula von der Leyen said the Commission “has decided to make the first COVID-19 vaccine available to European citizens. We have granted conditional permission [platinti] in the market. “
The EVA said a few hours earlier that the vaccine, developed by German biotech company BioNTech and US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, meets EU quality and safety standards. It was previously predicted that Brussels would approve distribution of the vaccine two to three days after the EEA decision.
This decision was hastily made under pressure from European governments. The BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine has been approved by the UK and the US in recent weeks.
Mr von der Leyen said that the EU-wide vaccination against COVID-19 would start on December 27, adding that the vaccine is “a real success story in Europe”.
“This is a very good way to end this difficult year and finally turn a new page for COVID-19,” said the head of the European Commission in Brussels.
German Health Minister Jens Spahn said the decision opened “the way out of the crisis” and his Italian counterpart Roberto Speranza praised the EVA for “the knowledge we were waiting for.”
The vaccine should go on sale next Saturday and the first vaccinations in the EU should start on December 27 and 29.
The EEA said it was “very likely” that the vaccine would also be effective in protecting against a new strain of coronavirus, which is currently spreading rapidly in Britain.
“Historical achievements of science”
The decision by the Amsterdam-based EEA was announced after a closed-door committee meeting during which researchers responsible for evaluating the new vaccine presented the results of their analysis to other experts and examined data provided by the companies.
“I am pleased to announce that the Scientific Committee of the EEA has met today and recommended the conditional release of the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech in the EU market,” said Emer Cooke, director of the EEA, during a conference of virtual press.
“This is an important step forward in the fight against a pandemic that is causing suffering and hardship,” Cooke said in a decision to recommend approval of the vaccine.
“It is a truly historic achievement: a vaccine against the disease was developed and approved in less than a year,” he said.
Tensions over the pandemic escalated last weekend with the UK’s announcement of a new, rapidly spreading strain of coronavirus. Many countries around the world immediately suspended flights from Great Britain.
But EVA officials said the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine is also likely to provide resistance to the latest infections.
“There is currently no evidence that the vaccine does not work against the new variant,” said the head of EVA.
Marco Cavaleri, EEA’s head of vaccine strategy, added that more data was expected at the moment, but “we are not overly concerned yet.”
“It is very likely that the vaccine will maintain protection against this new variant,” he said.
“We would be intimidated if we saw multiple mutations,” especially genetic information that encodes a coronavirus “spine” protein that allows the pathogen to penetrate cells in the human body, Cavaleri said, adding that such changes have not yet been detected.
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