{"id":105475,"date":"2020-12-11T15:06:58","date_gmt":"2020-12-11T07:06:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=105475"},"modified":"2020-12-11T15:07:00","modified_gmt":"2020-12-11T07:07:00","slug":"covid-18-us-experts-vote-to-approve-pfizer-vaccine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=105475","title":{"rendered":"Covid-18: US experts vote to approve Pfizer vaccine"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"\/<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

WASHINGTON, Dec 11 (NNN-AGENCIES) — US experts voted Thursday to recommend granting emergency approval for Pfizer-BioNTech\u2019s Covid-19 vaccine, paving the way for America to become the next country to move ahead with mass immunization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It comes as the worst-hit country in the world logged more than 3,000 virus
deaths in one day and its overall toll was approaching 300,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With northern hemisphere countries hit by a pandemic winter surge, Britain this week became the first Western country to roll out the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Canada, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia have also approved it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

EU countries eagerly awaited a greenlight for vaccines that the bloc\u2019s own
watchdog said remained on track for approval despite a two-week-long
cyberattack, which is under investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Independent experts convened by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) voted 17 in favor, four against and with one abstention for emergency approval of the two-dose regimen in over-16s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The vote is non-binding, but a formal emergency use authorization (EUA) is
expected within days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Momentum was building as the New England Journal of Medicine published full results of a clinical trial of the vaccine involving nearly 44,000 people, which confirmed it was 95 percent effective with no serious safety issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe trial results are impressive enough to hold up in any conceivable
analysis. This is a triumph,\u201d an accompanying editorial said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, the voting members of the Vaccines and Related Biological
Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) mulled outstanding issues closely in a live-streamed event held over the course of the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These included difficult questions like when people who got placebos in the
trial should receive the vaccine, a tricky debate that weighs the need for
more controlled data against paying back altruistic volunteers for their
service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other questions include whether unexpected safety issues may arise when the number of people vaccinated grows to millions and possibly billions of
people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also unknown is whether more side effects will emerge with longer follow-
up, how long the vaccine remains effective, whether it will limit
transmission and how it will work in children, pregnant women, and
immunocompromised patients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The FDA said it would issue an allergy warning following Britain\u2019s lead
after two health care workers there suffered reactions and needed treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The virus has killed at least 1,570,398 people worldwide since the outbreak
emerged in China last December, according to official sources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The US hopes to vaccinate 20 million people this month, with long-term care
facility residents and health workers at the front of the line. — NNN-AGENCIES<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON, Dec 11 (NNN-AGENCIES) — US experts voted Thursday to recommend granting emergency approval for Pfizer-BioNTech\u2019s Covid-19 vaccine, paving the way for America to become the next country to move ahead with mass immunization. It comes as the worst-hit country in the world logged more than 3,000 virusdeaths in one day and its overall toll […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[208],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105475"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=105475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105475\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=105475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=105475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=105475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}