First virus jabs likely in EU by early 2021

stockholm — The first vaccinations in the European Union against Covid-19 could happen in the first three months of 2021 under an optimistic scenario, the EU health agency chief said on Wednesday.

“I think optimistically first quarter next year, but I can’t be more precise,” Andrea Ammon, the director of the Stockholmbased European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), said in an interview.

A European source said on Tuesday that a vaccine could be authorised for use in the EU in “early 2021”, after the announcement that US pharmaceutical group Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech’s vaccine had shown 90 percent effectiveness in phase three trials.

“Of course it’s promising,” said Ammon, stressing that so far it is a “press release and not yet a (scientific) peer review, so we have to see what the final assessment will be.”

For any vaccine to be available within the European Union, it has to receive authorisation from the European Medicines Agency.

The European Commission said on Wednesday it had signed a contract with Pfizer and BioNTech to buy 300 million doses of their vaccine.

Ammon said the pandemic’s spread in Europe was “very, very concerning” and all indicators were “going in the wrong direction right now.”

Since the beginning of the outbreak, Europe has suffered at least 311,000 deaths from more than 13 million infections, and many countries have been hit by a second wave.

Ammon suggested “it could be that it takes longer to bring the cases down from where we are right now” than it did in March and April when cases peaked during the first wave in Europe.

She urged Europeans to respect their countries’ restrictions and measures to curb the spread of the virus, “as hard as it may be”. —

We need to understand that even when we have a safe and effective vaccine this will not be a silver bullet that will make Covid-19 disappear overnight.” Stella Kyriakides, EU Health Commissioner

Of course it’s promising... So far it (Pfizer) is a ‘press release and not yet a (scientific) peer review, so we have to see what the final assessment will be.”

Andrea Ammon, Director of European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control