European countries are following the United States, Britain and a handful of other countries to start spreading coronavirus vaccines.
With the rapid development and licensing of drugs around the world, there are still questions about the availability, effectiveness and side effects of jobs.
It usually takes about 10 years to develop and market a new vaccine, but the process has been greatly accelerated for Covid-19.
A vaccine developed by the American company Pfizer and the German company BioNTech was approved for use in Britain on December 2. Since then thousands of elderly people have received their first dose.
A total of 16 countries and the European Union have given the green light to the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted emergency licenses for the drug Pfizer-BioNTech and other injections from the American company Moderna.
Russia began vaccination on December 5 with its domestic drug Sputnik V, which is still in the third phase of clinical trials. China has already given permission for some of their vaccines to be used in emergencies, even though none have been formally approved.
A total of 16 vaccines are in the final development phase, including those already on the market, the World Health Organization says.
Vaccinations can start from Sunday after obtaining approval from Pfizer-BioNTech injection with the European Medicines Agency (EMA).
Each member state will be at the forefront of defining their priorities by outreach.
But three member states – Germany, Hungary and Slovakia – began vaccinating early on Saturday.
As of November 9, four manufacturers have announced that their vaccine is effective: Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, the British alliance AstraZeneca-University of Oxford and the Russian state institute Gamaleia.
These calls are based on level 3 clinical trials involving tens of thousands of volunteers.
However, accurate and validated data are only available for the drugs Pfizer-BioNTech and AstraZeneca-Oxford.
The scientific journal The Lancet on December 8 confirmed that the AstraZeneca vaccine was 70 percent effective on average.
The FDA confirmed the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine at 95 percent efficacy with Moderna claiming 94.1 percent for its drug. Russia claims a 91.4 percent efficacy for the Sputnik V vaccine.
The AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine is the most expensive at around € 2.50 per dose). The vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer / BioNTech have a supply manual, as they can only be stored long-term at very low temperatures (-20 ° Celsius for the former, -70 ° C for the latter ).
Experts maintain that, with clinical trials conducted on tens of thousands of volunteers, any major risk would already have been detected. But rarer side effects, or those that affect specific patient images, cannot be ruled out.
According to the FDA, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine can cause painful reactions to the arm where the injection is made. Other undesirable side effects include muscle weakness, headaches, cramps and, less commonly, fever.
The most important thing is long-term efficiency.
Penny Ward from King’s College London said the key questions were how long would the protection last and whether the last virus could move and not be covered by the vaccine anymore?
Another important question is whether the vaccines work differently in the most at-risk populations, starting with older people who are more likely to develop a severe form of Covid-19.
It remains to be seen whether these vaccines inhibit the spread of the virus, and also reduce the severity of the infection in those who received the injection.
EU experts believe that standard vaccines against Covid-19 are still effective against the new strain of the virus found in Britain and elsewhere, which is thought to be more contagious.
“At present there is no evidence to suggest that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is not effective against the new variant,” the European Medicines Agency said.
BioNTech’s German laboratory co-director Ugur Sahin echoed that message, saying his company would in any case be able to provide a vaccine for a new strain of Covid-19 within six weeks.