In what has been described by the Pfizer CEO as a "historic moment", a UK Department of Health and Social Care spokesman confirmed today that : “The government has accepted the recommendation from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Authority (MHRA) to approve Pfizer/BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine for use."
With that, the UK has become the first western country to license a Covid-19 vaccine and will begin the rollout as early as next week, when 800,000 doses are to be made available for those most at risk. Duke University, which has been aggregating and analyzing data on vaccine procurement and manufacturing, indicates that the UK has procured 355 million vaccine doses from seven different companies as of 30 November - 40 million of which are from Pfizer/BioNTech.
