The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it authorized the use of Pfizer Inc’s COVID-19 vaccine on Friday, with the first inoculations expected within days, marking a turning point in the United States where the pandemic has killed more than 295,000 people.
The FDA granted an emergency use authorization for the vaccine, developed with German partner BioNTech, which was shown to be 95% effective in preventing the disease in a late-stage trial. It said the vaccine can be given to people aged 16 and older.
Healthcare workers and elderly people in long-term care facilities are expected to be the main recipients of a first round of 2.9 million doses.
Cases are surging in the United States, with thousands of death per day, while hospital intensive care units across the country are nearing capacity, threatening to overwhelm healthcare systems.
The timing gives the authorization “huge importance”, BioNTech Chief Executive Ugur Sahin said in an interview.
U.S. health authorities, shipping services and hospitals stood ready to begin a nationwide inoculation campaign. State public health systems have been planning to begin shots as early as Monday.
Delivery companies United Parcel Service and FedEx Corp plan to ship millions of the Pfizer doses across the country, giving top priority to the vaccines on their airplanes and trucks.
Millions of Americans could begin getting vaccinated this month, especially if a second vaccine from Moderna Inc is quickly approved.
“It is one step in a sequence of steps that will bring this pandemic to an end,” said Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
He added: “A lot of people will be infected, a lot will be hospitalized and a lot will die before the vaccine is able to have a meaningful impact on spread.”
The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was first approved in Britain earlier this month, and UK residents began receiving the shots on Tuesday. Canada also authorized the vaccine and expects to start inoculations next week.