Frankfurt Main, Jan 1 (AFP/APP): German firm BioNTech said Friday it was racing to ramp up production of its Covid-19 jab in Europe, to fill the “gap” left by the lack of other approved vaccines.
The vaccine developed by BioNTech and its US partner Pfizer was the first to be approved in the European Union in late December.
Countries including Britain, Canada and the United States okayed the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine earlier and have since also green-lighted jabs by US firm Moderna or Oxford/AstraZeneca, leaving the EU’s inoculation drive lagging behind.
“The current situation is not rosy, there’s a hole because there’s an absence of other approved vaccines and we have to fill this gap with our vaccine,” BioNTech co-founder Ugur Sahin told Der Spiegel weekly.
Criticism of the slow pace of Europe’s vaccine rollout has grown louder in recent days.
In Germany, where the focus has been on inoculating elderly people in care homes, senior doctors have complained that hospital staff are being left waiting for their jabs despite being in the priority groups.
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