Unlike Argentina, the European Union has approved Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine against COVID-19

The European Union approved this Monday on Pfizer / BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, which opens the door to the first vaccinations in the 27 member countries after Christmas. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) authorized the product to be marketed and, hours later, the EU’s executive arm, the Commission, gave the final green light.

In view of the concern raised by the new strain of covid-19, which is very contagious, which occurred in the south of England, the EMA claimed that “there is no evidence” that this antidote is ineffective against this variant.

The Amsterdam-based EMA’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) has postponed the meeting originally scheduled for December 29 by one week, under pressure from Germany and other countries, who wanted to see the a decision quickly.

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“This is an important step in the fight against this pandemic, which is causing so much suffering and hardship. “EMA CEO Emer Cooke said.

“It really is a historic scientific achievement, in less than a year a vaccine against this disease has been developed and authorized,” he said.

The US government of Donald Trump was the big promoter of this accelerated research and vaccine approval, and the UK the first country to use Pfizer-BioNTech.

The head of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, He said the first applications of the vaccine will take place between December 27 and 29. France has already announced that the first vaccinations will take place on Sunday.

Countries like the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Singapore and Switzerland are among the fifteen states that have already authorized the Pfizer vaccine. -BioNTech, giving the starting signal to vaccination campaigns.

95% efficient

The EMA initially planned to make a decision on Moderna’s competitor vaccine on January 12, but he also brought it forward a week, as he did with the Pfizer-BioNTech one.

The vaccine developed by the American giant Pfizer and the German company BioNTech It has been shown to be 95% effective in international clinical trials in which two doses were given three weeks apart.

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The regulator has performed a “continuous review” of laboratory and clinical trial data as it arrives. Normally, the agency does not review the data until it has been fully collected. Pfizer-BioNTech submitted a clearance request on December 1, and the EMA responded that it would make its decision on December 29 at an expert meeting.

But The United Kingdom, the United States and Canada have given the green light in the context of an emergency procedure, which made it possible to start the vaccination campaigns earlier. Several states complained about the slowness in reaching a decision. Polish and Hungarian leaders called for an acceleration at the last EU summit last week, assisted by Berlin.

The European regulator also suffered a cyberattack in which data on Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna was stolen, although this had no impact on the schedule, according to the EMA. The EU ensures that it has put in place a coordinated vaccination program in the 27 member countries to allow equitable access to vaccine doses.