Britain has become the first country in the West to approve a COVID-19 vaccine for public use. The UK Department of Health and Social Care confirmed in a statement to British news agencies that the vaccine developed jointly by American drugmaker Pfizer and Germany's BioNTech would be distributed starting next week. Pfizer was the first of three major Western pharmaceutical companies to apply in both the US and Europe for emergency use authorization.

 

英国成为首个批准新冠疫苗供民众使用的的西方国家。英国卫生和社会保健部在一份发给英国媒体的声明中证实，美国制药商辉瑞和德国生物新技术公司联合研制的新冠疫苗将从下周起开始发放。辉瑞是三家大型西方制药公司中首个在美国和欧洲同时申请紧急使用授权的公司。

 

"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," a Department of Health and Social Care spokesman told the Press Association of Britain. The spokesman said the emergency use authorization followed "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."

 

In line with planning in the US, British front-line healthcare workers, care home residents, the very elderly and people with underlying conditions that make them particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 complications are expected to get the first doses of the vaccine. Pfizer's vaccine, like the Oxford and Moderna formulas, requires two doses about a month apart.

 

UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock called it "fantastic news" that Britain's regulator had deemed the first vaccine safe, and vowed that distribution would begin from Monday. He told the BBC Breakfast show that vaccinations would "start with the most elderly and with people in care homes."

 

Prime Minister Boris Johnson also hailed the news, confirming in a tweet plans to start rolling out doses from next week.

 

"It's the protection of vaccines that will ultimately allow us to reclaim our lives and get the economy moving again," Johnson said.