Vaccine approval close: PM
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says the Government could greenlight a Covid-19 vaccine as soon as next Wednesday, and says New Zealand is keeping pace with Australia’s vaccine rollout.
The first batch of the Pfizer vaccine is due to arrive before the end of March in order to vaccinate those working at the border, but the country’s medicine regulator, MedSafe, has not yet approved it.
Ardern said Medsafe would be seeking the advice and recommendation of its ministerial advisory committee on the Pfizer vaccine on Tuesday.
‘‘The ministerial expert advisory committee will review Medsafe’s benefit-risk assessment of the pharmaceutical company’s data and, depending on feedback, Medsafe may be able to grant provisional approval as soon as the following day,’’ Ardern said. ‘‘Medsafe’s process not only ensures New Zealanders can feel confident in the vaccines we receive, it’s also been timely and means we will be ready to receive and administer vaccines as soon as Pfizer is in a position to send them.’’
She said even if Medsafe were not yet ready to green-light the vaccine she expected the agency would be prior to it actually arriving in New Zealand. It’s still unclear when in the first quarter of the year the first batch 100,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine will arrive. New Zealand has ordered enough of the two-course Pfizer vaccine to cover 750,000 people, with an aim of covering the most exposed to Covid-19 and those most at-risk of dying from it. Several other pre-purchasing agreements have been established for vaccines for the wider population.
The announcement comes as the Government faces significant political pressure over the vaccine after a woman in Northland developed Covid-19 symptoms after going through managed isolation.
Other countries such as Israel have been rolling out the vaccine with more speed, although they are also dealing with serious outbreaks.
Ardern argued that New Zealand had not yet fallen behind Australia – where the Government has said vaccinations will start in mid-February – because they hadn’t actually started yet. But Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins has repeatedly said he doesn’t expect the first batch of Pfizer vaccines to arrive until March.
‘‘Australia has not received vaccine yet. New Zealand hasn’t either. There’s nothing to suggest that we will be receiving them with great distance,’’ Ardern said.
Ardern said she hadn’t shared an exact date because she wanted to know when the drugs would arrive, and was intending to start wider vaccination in the middle of the year.