Britain becomes the first country to license a fully tested covid-19 vaccine

ON DECEMBER 2NDMHRABNTBNT Britain became the first country to permit the general use of a fully tested covid-19 vaccine. The decision to grant this emergency authorisation had been made late the previous evening by the country’s Medicines and Healthcare-products Regulatory Agency ().The vaccine licensed is code-named 162b2 and was developed by Pfizer, an American pharmaceutical giant, and BioNTech, a smaller German firm. It has an efficacy of 95%, a figure that seems consistent across a range of ages and ethnicities. Britain had already ordered 40m doses of 162b2 and Pfizer, as soon as it was informed of the decision, activated the procedures needed to start importing it from the site in Puurs, Belgium, where it is being made. The plan is to start vaccinating people on December 7th, and Matt Hancock, Britain’s chief health minister (pictured), has said that he expects “a matter of millions of doses” of the vaccine to be available in the country by the end of the year.