On Thursday, an expert committee convened by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) voted heavily recommending the approval of Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use.
The committee includes independent experts and researchers, biostatisticians and other scientists which were tasked to answer whether, “based on the totality of scientific evidence available, do the benefits of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine outweigh its risk for use in individuals 16 years of age and older?”
The final voting of the committee tally 17 votes in the favor of using the vaccine while four against and one abstention. Although, the recommendation of committee does not bind the FDA but it is expected to be followed in the coming days.
Britain became the first country to roll out Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine followed by Britain, Canada, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. While the Russian and Chinese vaccines are also administered on a large scale without completing comparable clinical trials.
Pfizer Inc. and its German partner BioNTech have reported preliminary findings of more than 90 per cent effective vaccine are based on the innovative messenger RNA (mRNA) technology. Pfizer scientist Kathrin Jansen told the panel the RNA technology behind the vaccine is an approach that has never before been approved.