Pharma firm Pfizer has said it is dedicated to ensure availability of its COVID-19 vaccine for use by governments across the world. "During this pandemic phase, Pfizer will supply this vaccine only via government contracts based on agreements with respective govt authorities & following regulatory authorization or approval", the US pharma firm said.
On December 2, UK became the first country to approve the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against COVID-19 for emergency supply and said the vaccine would be rolled out from next week.On December 5, Bahrain became the second country in the world to approve Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine candidate 'BNT162b2' for emergency use after the United Kingdom.
"The confirmation of approval by the National Health Regulatory Authority of the Kingdom of Bahrain followed thorough analysis and review undertaken by the authority of all available data," news agency AP quoted state-run Bahrain News Agency as saying.
Pfizer seeks approval for emergency use in India after nod in UK, Bahrain
Notably, Pfizer, BioNTech, Moderna, and Russia's Sputnik V are the only vaccines that have claimed over 90 per cent efficacy of their respective candidates so far.
While Russia had already rolled out Sputnik V for the masses in August, the recently announced data results on the efficacy of Moderna, Pfizer, and BioNTech's vaccines have also raised high hopes.
Besides, Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford's vaccine candidate, being developed along with India's Serum Institute, has also achieved 70 per cent efficacy during the preliminary analysis of the Covid-19 trial participants.
The approval for Pfizer's vaccine candidate came in only 10 months since the company started developing it, which in itself was the fastest in the history of vaccines. Other countries like the US and the European Union are vetting the Pfizer and BioNTech candidate and the one developed by Moderna Inc.
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