US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) staff said on Tuesday that data on Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine was in line with its guidance on emergency use authorization, raising hopes it could soon be available to Americans aged 16 and above.
The comments were made in documents released ahead of Thursday’s meeting of outside experts to discuss whether the shot developed with German partner BioNTech should be authorized for emergency use.
The FDA is expected to decide on whether to authorize the vaccine within days or weeks.
Related
Here is what experts are saying about Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine success
Britain already began rolling out the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech on Tuesday, the first Western country to start vaccinating its general population in what was hailed as a decisive watershed in defeating the coronavirus.
Margaret Keenan, a 90-year-old grandmother became the first person in the world to receive the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine.
Both Pfizer-BioNTech and U.S. biotech firm Moderna have reported preliminary findings of more than 90% effectiveness – an unexpectedly high rate – in trials of their vaccines, which are both based on new messenger RNA (mRNA) technology.
