In a historic first, UK set to introduce Covid vaccine

BRITAIN on December 2 became the first Western country to approve a Covid-19 vaccine for general use, announcing a rollout of Pfizer-BioNTech’s drug from next week in a historic advance for humanity’s fight against the coronavirus.

“Help is on its way,” health secretary Matt Hancock tweeted as his department announced emergency use approval by the UK’s independent Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

“The NHS [National Health Service] stands ready to start vaccinating early next week,” he said, noting: “The UK is the first country in the world to have a clinically approved vaccine for supply.”

The health ministry said priority groups to receive the jab will include care home residents, health and care staff, the elderly and the clinically extremely vulnerable.

An initial supply of 800,000 doses will be available, Hancock said. “This will start small and ramp up,” he told BBC radio, anticipating “millions of doses” to be available by the end of the year.

The breakthrough will encourage hopes the world can finally get back on course in 2021 after a year of traumatic losses, both human and economic.

The novel coronavirus has killed nearly 1.5 million people since the outbreak emerged 12 months ago. At least 63 million cases have been registered.

Other vaccines expected to come on stream soon include ones from Moderna and AstraZeneca/Oxford University.

The US and Europe on December 1 fleshed out plans to administer Covid19 vaccines as soon as they gain approval, with a US panel recommending that health care workers and nursing home residents be given top priority.

In the US, an advisory panel of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention proposed that healthcare workers and nursing home residents – 24 million people in total – be the first in line for Covid jabs.

Those two groups have accounted for about 40 per cent of deaths thus far in the US, which has the world’s highest coronavirus toll. Britain has the highest toll in Europe.

The European Medicines Agency said it would hold an extraordinary meeting on December 29 “at the latest” to consider emergency approval for the vaccine developed by Germany’s BioNTech and US giant Pfizer.