US starts Pfizer jabs on Monday but in Europe the wait continues

TENS of thousands of Britons have already been inoculated against Covid-19, while European regulators appear no closer to approving the life-saving jab.

Doctors on the Continent are facing the growing prospect they will not do a single injection before the New Year – while the NHS’s mass vaccination effort gathers pace.

Britain’s remarkable global lead in the vaccine race comes as US authorities yesterday announced their own huge vaccination efforts to protect the nation’s 330 million people will begin tomorrow.

Last Friday, the US became the second country in the world to approve the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, a week and a half after the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) did so.

The MHRA’s swift approval process, aided by Brexit, led to sniping from US and European doctors and politicians, who made unfounded smears that it had cut corners.

But the fact the US’s fastidious Food and Drugs Administration has now given the Pfizer jab the green light, will be seen as a sign the MHRA made the correct call. It will also pile pressure on its EU counterpart, the European Medicines Agency (EMA), to come to a decision as Covid-19 deaths are mounting across the Channel.

Italy regained the unhappy position of having the most Covid-19 related deaths in Europe yesterday, slightly overtaking the UK.

There have been 64,036 officially recorded Covid-19 related deaths in Italy, nine more than the UK.

Italian microbiologist Professor Andrea Cristani, of Imperial College London, said the 25,000 deaths in Italy’s second wave was ‘unforgivable’ and ‘a sign of poor management and amateurish preparation’.

The EMA has remained tightl i pped a bout why i t has not approved the Pfizer/ BioNTech vaccine so far, amid whisperings it is bound up in red tape.

In an online EMA presentation last Friday, Fergus Sweeney, head of its clinical studies and manufacturing task force, said ‘safety is paramount’ and that vaccines were ‘only approved after demonstration that their overall benefits outweigh their risks’. However, the MHRA has stressed it holds the same high standards, but was able to approve the jab faster thanks to a lightning speed ‘rolling review’ of trial data as it came in.

The European regulator has set a deadline of December 29 for deciding whether or not it will license the jab for widespread use.

Frustrated at the slow pace, Ireland is considering importing its first batch from Pfizer’s Belgian factory before approval, as it would take another seven to ten days for it to arrive after approval.