A health worker has a coronavirus disease vaccine vial (COVID-19) at the Dignity Health Glendale Memorial Hospital and Health Center in Glendale, California, USA on December 17, 2020.
Lucy Nicholson | Reuters
The European drug regulator on Monday authorized the Pfizer and BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for conditional use, opening the door to an EU-wide inoculation program.
The news comes less than two weeks after the vaccine developed by the United States and Germany for use in the United Kingdom and the United States was approved.
Europe is on track to start vaccinations in a week, regulators said, and authorities in several EU countries, including France, Italy, Austria and Germany, have said they intend to start vaccinations on 27 December.
The European Commission must support the vaccine before it can be distributed and a decision is expected shortly.
The European Medicines Agency said in a statement on Monday that it had recommended granting a conditional marketing authorization for the vaccine to people aged 16 and over.
“EMA’s scientific opinion paves the way for the European Commission’s first marketing authorization for a COVID-19 vaccine by the European Commission, with all the guarantees, controls and obligations that this entails,” he said. agency.
Vaccination authorizations are increasing in the same way that European countries are stepping up blockades amid a more deadly winter wave of virus infections.
A new highly transmissible variant of the virus has been detected in the UK, prompting Prime Minister Boris Johnson to demand a strict closure of some areas. It has led to a growing number of countries suspending flights and transport connections from the island.
The coronavirus pandemic has killed nearly half a million people across Europe since it began.
Governments are struggling to implement effective strategies both to prevent new infections and to keep local economies afloat as cases and deaths reach new holiday records.
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