Coronavirus: Japan plans to move ahead to approve Pfizer vaccine ahead of schedule

Japan’s health ministry is planning to move ahead with a formal approval of the coronavirus vaccine developed by US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc on Sunday, when the first batch of doses is expected to arrive in the country, sources familiar with the matter said Thursday.

The Health, Labour and Welfare Ministry had intended to approve the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine on Monday. With an acceleration of its administrative procedures, the government is considering starting vaccinations on February 17 for around 20,000 doctors and nurses who have consented to receive the shots, the sources said.

Ahead of the formal approval, a health ministry panel is expected to hold a meeting on Friday night to discuss whether Japan should go ahead with the Pfizer vaccine to deal with the pandemic. It is highly likely that the panel will give the green light, considering that Pfizer’s vaccine has already been administered in several countries including the United States.

The roughly 20,000 doctors and nurses from 100 hospitals across the country are set to participate in a study aiming to track potential symptoms and the frequency with which the symptoms occur, regardless of whether the vaccine is the cause.

After the arrival from Belgium of the first batch of the vaccine, jointly developed by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech SE, it remains unclear when and in what amount Japan can secure further quantities of the vaccine because of tightening EU export controls of products developed in the bloc.