MUMBAI: The United Kingdom (UK) today became the first country to approve and authorize a COVID-19 vaccine that will be rolled out for its citizen as early as next week to fight the pandemic that has created unprecedented adverse situation in the world. 

According to an announcement made by the UK's Department of Health & Social Care (DHSC), the government today accepted the recommendation from the independent Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to approve Pfizer/BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine for use.

“This follows months of rigorous clinical trials and a thorough analysis of the data by experts at the MHRA who have concluded that the vaccine has met its strict standards of safety, quality and effectiveness," the DHSC release said.

It further added that the vaccine would be made available across the UK from next week. According to Health Secretary Matt Hancock, the first 800,000 doses will be available in the UK from next week, which will be first issued to the most vulnerable class of its population. UK has reportedly, already placed an order for 40 million doses of the vaccine.

The coronavirus vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc and its German partner BioNTech SE based on an innovative technology called messenger RNA has taken only about 10 months to be developed and approved for mass immunisation making it the fastest vaccine every developed which has a 95% effective rate.

According to the global pharma giant Pfizer, production of vaccine for the UK will be done from its manufacturing site in Puurs in Belgium, one of its largest sterile injectable sites which will also be used primarily for European supply and also serve as back up supply to Kalamazoo, Michigan, for the U.S. market.

Based on current projections, Pfizer’s and BioNTech’s combined manufacturing network has the potential to supply globally up to 50 million vaccine doses in 2020 and up to 1.3 billion doses by the end of 2021.