(VOVWORLD) - The promise of COVID-19 vaccines is “phenomenal” and “potentially game-changing”, World Health Organization European director Hans Kluge said on Thursday, a day after Britain became the first Western country to approve a shot.
Vials with a sticker reading, "COVID-19 / Coronavirus vaccine / Injection only" and a medical syringe are seen in front of a displayed Pfizer logo in this illustration taken October 31, 2020. (Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic)
|
Britain approved Pfizer Inc’s COVID-19 vaccine, developed with Germany’s BioNTech, outpacing the world in the race to begin the most crucial mass inoculation programme in history.
Speaking from Copenhagen, Kluge said vaccine supplies would be very limited at first and that countries must decide who gets priority, though the WHO also cited “growing consensus” that first recipients should be older people, medical workers and people with other diseases, as Britain plans.
The EU’s own regulator, in response to the swift British approval of Pfizer’s shot, has said its own, longer procedure was more appropriate and required more evidence.
EU and separate US approval could come within days or weeks.