The Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus has been approved by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) for use in the UK, paving the way for mass vaccination to start.
Officials said the vaccine will be made available “from next week”.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “The Government has today accepted the recommendation from the independent Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to approve Pfizer/BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine for use.
“This follows months of rigorous clinical trials and a thorough analysis of the data by experts at the MHRA who have concluded that the vaccine has met its strict standards of safety, quality and effectiveness.
“The vaccine will be made available across the UK from next week.”
The health secretary, Matt Hancock said that the Pfizer vaccine approval means ‘by spring we will be through this’,
He told Sky News this morning that there would be “three modes of delivery” for the vaccine
“The first is hospitals themselves, which of course we’ve got facilities like this – 50 hospitals across the country are already set up and waiting to receive the vaccine as soon as it’s approved, so that can now happen.
Also vaccination centres, which will be big centres where people can go to get vaccinated. They are being set up now.
There will also be a community rollout, including GPs and pharmacists. Now, of course, because of the -70C storage conditions of this vaccine, they will be able to support this rollout where they have those facilities.
But they’ll also be there should the AstraZeneca vaccine be approved because that doesn’t have these cold storage requirements and so is operationally easier to roll out.”
NHS chief executive Sir Simon Stevens said:
“This is an important next step in our response to the Coronavirus pandemic and hospitals will shortly kick off the first phase of the largest scale vaccination campaign in our country’s history.
“The NHS has a proven track record of delivering large scale vaccinations from the winter flu jab to BCG and, once the final hurdles are cleared and the vaccine arrives in England’s hospitals, health service staff will begin offering people this ground-breaking jab in a programme that will expand to cover the whole country in the coming months.”
