Phials of the Pfizer-BioNtech Covid-19 vaccine, are stocked on a freezer at low temperatures at a vaccination centre in Quimper, western France, on February 16, 2021. (AFP)
Brazil’s health regulatory agency said Tuesday it had approved the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for widespread use, as the country races to secure enough doses to contain one of the world’s worst outbreaks.
“It gives me great pleasure to announce that after a 17-day review, (regulators) have granted the first approval in the Americas for widespread use of a vaccine against COVID-19,” said Antonio Barra Torres, the director of federal health regulator Anvisa, underlining that the approval was definitive and not only for emergency use.
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However, the vaccine is not yet available in Brazil, which is so far using two others: Chinese-developed CoronaVac and one developed by Oxford University and British-Swedish pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca.
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