IN UK, Pfizer’s COVID Vaccine will be available ‘From Next Week’

BORIS Johnson Govt has okayed  Pfizer-BioNTech COVID19 vaccine for marketing from next week across the United Kingdom making  UK to be the first country in the world to make available the much-awaited coronavirus vaccine. The vaccine will be rolled out from next week onwards, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said. The programme will begin early next week. “It is very good news,” Hancock said. Priority for vaccination will be given to healthcare workers and care home residents. Pfizer’s CEO has called the approval a ‘historic moment’ in COVID-19 battle. “The UK Government has  accepted the recommendation sent by the Independent Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) approving  Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine for use,” the government said, reported Reuters.” BioNTech, the German pharmaceutical company, and its US partner, Pfizer, filed for emergency use authorization for their COVID-19 vaccine in Europe. The authorization was filed with the European Medicines Agency (EMA). Moderna, another frontrunner in the COVID-19 vaccine race, has also filed for emergency use authorization in the US, and UK.Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine has proven 95 per cent effective against COVID-19 in the final phase trials. Britain’s vaccine committee will decide which priority groups will get the jab first such as care home residents, health and care staff, the elderly and people who are clinically extremely vulnerable. Both Pfizer-BioNTech and US biotech firm Moderna have reported preliminary findings of more than 90% effectiveness – an unexpectedly high rate – in trials of their vaccines, which are both based on new messenger RNA (mRNA) technology.