britain has approved the coronavirus
vaccine by pharmaceutical partners
pfizer and bion tech
becoming the first country in the world
to do so the uk government says the shot
will be available across the country
from next week
the vaccine is the result of a
collaboration between us
drug maker pfizer and german company
biontech
it's still awaiting regulatory approval
across the rest of the world
including the eu where authorities say
it could be authorized
within weeks the british health minister
matt hancock
welcomed news of the decision by the
regulatory authority
fantastic news the the mhra the fiercely
independent regulator
uh has uh clinically authorized the
uh the vaccine for for rollout the nhs
stands ready to make that happen
so from early next week we will start
the program
of vaccinating people against covert 19
here in this country
well our correspondent bigger mars joins
us from london
bigot how will this affect the uk's
handling of the pandemic
well it really looks like the uk is
going to be the first country in the
world where actual
jabs are going to go into arms and we
had the health secretary matt hancock
say that 50 hospitals are already ready
in the uk and that next week it could
start we know that the process is going
to be that health workers
and also very elderly people in care
homes they are going to be vaccinated
first and after that
it's going to be more or less according
to age groups so the oldest people
are going to be treated first are going
to get the jabs fast and then
there is uh with underlying health
conditions in sort of a
a rolling process and then it goes
through
the ages so the youngest will be lost in
line
now we know that the uk has about 40
million doses bought
this is not enough to inoculate the
whole country there will have to be
either more doses or the hope is and i
think this is hope
across the world that other companies
will get their vaccinations approved in
the coming weeks and months and that
this is just the start of a big process
of rollout across the whole world
bigger mars in london thank you
and zw's um matthew moore joins us uh
here in the studio
uh you follow this story for us when
will the first
vaccines be distributed well the german
company that has been developing these
vaccines says that they'll start
delivering them this week so
they've been produced at two sites in
germany there's a third site that
they're building to try to cope with all
the demand
and they say that they'll start sending
them this week and as we heard from the
health secretary in the uk
they hope to start distributing the
vaccines next week so it's a huge
moment gerhard this is the one that the
moment that the world has been waiting
for there seems to be a wee crack of
light at the end of this dark tunnel
you know and this is a vaccine that is
95
effective across all age groups so even
the over 65 it's proved effective
and it's the fastest ever most vaccines
are the
fastest vaccines that we've had today
have been in the four years five year
mark
and this is in less than a year so it's
you know it's a it's a
huge moment this approval by the british
authorities
uh what does this mean for approval in
the u.s and uh
in in uh in the eu well the eu is
um set to get its hands on 300 million
doses of this vaccine
but it hasn't yet been approved they're
due european medicines agencies due to
me
at the end of the month to give its
opinion
there are some even before today who
were saying that's not quick enough you
should be making a decision earlier
but actually there's been some some kind
of dissent today from the european
lawmaker
and the german cdu party who said
actually maybe this decision from the uk
was too hasty
um in the u.s they're due to be next
week to decide they should get their
hands on about 100 million doses
could be as much as half a mil half a
billion doses by the end of
next year and and there will be pressure
just growing now saying if it's good
enough for the uk is it good enough for
us
absolutely also this particular vaccine
has to be stored at minus 70 degrees
celsius that is a logistical problem
isn't it
yeah this was one of the problem the
issues at the beginning of the
when we first heard that this vaccine
was effective was that actually it needs
to be stored at
incredibly cold temperatures and that
was going to be one of the hard dose to
distributing this around the world but
pfizer say they've built kind of these
shippers as they call them these um
units that can hold these vaccines at
that temperature
and using dry ice for up to 30 days
that allows them to get to the far ends
of the world then they
they go into fridges where they can be
thawed out at normal temperatures
and the shelf life there in a normal
fridge is five days so they hope that
they've bought themselves enough room to
to get this thing out there and to
really
make a success matthew thank you
let's have a look now at some of the
other developments in the coronavirus
pandemic
germany's public health institute has
reported a record 487 deaths over
24 hours officials said they'd been
expecting daily deaths to trend upwards
following a steep rise in new infections
recently
portuguese prime minister antonio costa
has said securing a vaccine for all
european countries will be
his top priority portugal takes over the
european union's rotating presidency
in january and media reports say japan
is planning to allow large numbers
of overseas visitors to attend next
year's tokyo olympics
without mandatory vaccinations or
quarantine but that's only if they
submit negative covet test results
and download tracking apps
you