It's the first covert 19 vaccine to be authorized by the European Medicines Agency and could be ruled out before the end of the year.

The shot is already in use in Britain and the United States.

The agency says there's nothing to suggest the vaccine will not work against the new mutant strain of the virus which has emerged in the UK The European Commission must still rubber stamp the decision before the inoculation can be rolled out across the 27 EU member states.

Let's cross strait to Max Sanda to get the view from Brussels.

Max.

There you are.

When could we expect these vaccines to be available across European countries?

Right?

Once this administrative hurdle is out of the way, the Iemma has given their approval.

Now it's up to the commission to decide if they give the green light for the vaccine.

This is likely gonna happen.

Uh, later tonight.

That's what Commission President Rosella Fund, the line said already.

And then it's up to the member states to start with the distribution.

The European Commission came up with the vaccinating plan.

Um, according to this plan, vaccinations that should start across Europe on December 27th, 28th and 29th.

Germany, for example, is gonna start vaccinating on December 29th.

And the Netherlands compared to that due to technical issues won't start vaccinating until the beginning of January.

The Iemma is one of the last big medical approval agencies to give the vaccine that go ahead.

Why has it taken so long?

Well, it did take a bit longer than the U.

K and the U.

S.

For example, but these countries went for the emergency approval.

All in all, the Iemma approval went quite fast.

Um, uh, they decided to do, um, or, uh, close to two decided to take a closer look at the at all the data.

And the upside here is that they know what they have.

Mawr confirmation.

They have confirmation on most aspects regarding a safety and effectiveness, and they have more time to review uh, the evidence.

And this will actually also help convince people Thio, take the shot at the end of the day.

Now the question is, of course, why did you not go for the emergency approval.

There's many reasons to it, one of the most.

The most important reason is that this would not break the dynamic of the pandemic.

Because even if we had started vaccinating a week or two weeks earlier, there still wouldn't have been enough vaccine to cater to everybody.

The EU has come under a lot of fire not only for taking quite long, but also for not buying enough doses of the vaccine.

Um, the commission brought half of what by on tech.

Pfizer offered them.

Why is that?

And how could that affect immunization efforts?

Um, there are many reasons for this three.

You decided Thio, uh, secure doses of vaccines of many different kinds of vaccines, um, months ago, at the beginning of the pandemic to make sure they would have, uh, the vaccine ready for for the for the member states.

So they made contracts with individual companies, six of them.

Now, back in the day.

It wasn't clear which vaccine would prove would prove, uh, would would go through fastest with their approval, which would prove effective.

And, uh, this is one of the reasons why they also spread out.

Also another reason.

Eyes that this vaccine fighter biotech is, uh, the most expensive one quite expensive compared to AstraZeneca.

For example, another non the manufacture of vaccines that is, do to get approval in the beginning of next year.

And some of the European Union states, particularly the Eastern European states, um, decided to push for the more cheaper versions.

All right, Max Anna in Brussels.

Thank you very much for your analysis.