U.S., UK and Germany to start COVID-19 vaccination in early December

Photo by SJ Objio

As another attempt to contain the spread of the deadly virus, U.S., UK and Germany will start COVID-19 vaccination in early December.

With hospitals overwhelmed, medical personnel exhausted, and most pharmacies for COVID testing fully-booked, the government is working to begin COVID-19 vaccinations in early December As another attempt to contain the spread of the deadly virus, AFP reported quoting Moncef Slaoui, the head of the U.S. government’s vaccine efforts.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said on Friday that it would meet on December 10 to discuss whether to authorize the vaccine.

The development comes after Pfizer Inc. said that final results from the late-stage trial of its COVID-19 vaccine show it is 95 percent effective.

Britain could give regulatory approval to Pfizer-BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine this week, even before the United States authorises it, the Telegraph news site reported on Sunday,Reuters reported.

Citing government sources, it said British regulators were about to start a formal appraisal of the vaccine, made by Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE, and that the National Health Service had been told to be ready to administer it by Dec. 1, the report said.

Britain has ordered 40 million doses and expects to have 10 million doses, enough to protect 5 million people, available by the end of the year if regulators approve it, the Reuters reported.
Germany could start administering shots of COVID-19 vaccines as soon as next month, Health Minister Jens Spahn was quoted as saying, the Reuters reported.

“There is reason to be optimistic that there will be approval for a vaccine in Europe this year,” Spahn said in an interview with publishing group RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland. “And then we can start right away.”

Spahn said that he had asked Germany’s federal states to have their vaccination centres ready by mid-December and that this was going well. “I would rather have a vaccination centre ready a few days early than an approved vaccine that isn’t being used immediately.”

Germany has secured more than 300 million vaccine doses via the European Commission, bilateral contracts and options, Spahn said, adding that this was more than enough and even left room to share with other countries, the report said.

Pfizer and German partner BioNTech were the first drug makers who claimed the 90% success of the vaccine in preventing the pandemic. Later, US biotech company Moderna has also said its experimental vaccine is 95 percent effective.

Moreover, on Monday a Covid-19 vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca Plc prevented a majority of people from getting the disease in a large trial, another promising development in the quest to end the pandemic, the Bloomberg reported.