BIONTECH

A panel of outside advisers to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday voted overwhelmingly to endorse emergency use of Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine, paving the way for the agency to authorize the shot for a nation that has lost more than 285,000 lives to COVID-19.

U.S. experts voted on Dec. 10 to recommend granting emergency approval for Pfizer-BioNTech's Covid-19 vaccine, paving the way for America to become the next country to move ahead with mass immunization.

It comes as the worst-hit country in the world logged nearly 6,000 virus deaths in 48 hours and its overall toll was approaching 300,000.

Documents related to the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine were illegally accessed during a cyberattack at the EU regulator, the company said on Dec. 9, as Germany and other northern hemisphere countries grappled with a winter surge in the pandemic.

Britain's medicine regulator has advised that people with a history of significant allergies do not get Pfizer-BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine after two people reported severe adverse reactions on the first day of rollout.

"All experts in the world say emphatically: The vaccine is a great discovery, it will save many lives. However until we clarify for 1-2 years the nature of this immunity that it creates, we must continue to follow the measures - wearing masks, hand washing, avoiding social contact." This is the opinion of Acad. Petrunov from the Bulgarian Academy of Science.

U.S. coronavirus cases crossed the 15 million mark on Tuesday as regulators moved a step closer to approving a COVID-19 vaccine and Britain started inoculating people, offering hope of slowing a pandemic that killed 15,000 Americans in the last week alone.

Britain on Dec. 8 became the first Western country to start mass coronavirus vaccinations, as Joe Biden pledged his administration would inoculate 100 million people in the United States over the first 100 days of his presidency.

Scientists in Turkey have attested to the reliability and effectiveness of novel coronavirus vaccines being brought to the country, some of which have started to be administered in other nations as well.

After Russia, corona vaccination campaign will be started in Britain from today also. After the public vaccination campaign of the corona vaccine, Sputnik-V started in Russia on Saturday, now in Britain, the vaccination campaign will start from today.

Margaret Keenan, a 90-year-old grandmother, on Tuesday became the first person in the world to receive the Pfizer NSE -0.33 % COVID-19 vaccine shot outside of a trial as Britain began vaccinating its population.
Great Britain is the first Western country to start vaccinating its general population today.