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The European Medicines Agency (EMA) hopes to give a favorable opinion on a first vaccine against the new coronavirus “before the end of the year” that will be distributed “from January,” its director, Guido Rasi, said this Saturday.
“If the data is solid, we can give the green light to the first vaccine by the end of the year and begin distribution from January,” said the director of the European Medicines Agency (EMA), Guido Rasi, in an interview published this Saturday. in the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore.
This body is responsible for the authorization and control of medicines in the European Union (EU), and the final green light granted by the European Commission allows laboratories to market their medicines throughout the EU.
The EMA, which expects there will be “six or seven” different vaccines available in 2021, on Friday received “the first clinical data from Pfizer on its vaccine,” said Guido Rasi.
The director of the EMA also described that they received “the preclinical data of AstraZeneca, of tests with animals, that are already being evaluated” and that, finally, they had “several conversations with Moderna”.
With the launch of the vaccine in January, its first effects in terms of containing the spread of the virus “will be visible in five to six months, especially next summer,” he explained, recalling that, obviously, “it will not be possible to immunize to all people. “
“We will start with the most vulnerable categories, such as the elderly and health professionals, who will begin to block the transmission bridges,” the official said.
Guido Rasi believes that it is necessary to vaccinate “more than half” of the European population to “witness a decline in the pandemic”, which will require “at least 500 million doses in Europe.”
To vaccinate everyone, “it will take at least a year” and “if all goes well by the end of 2021, we will have enough immunization,” Rasi said.
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