By Nneka Nwogwugwu
The European Union drugs regulator will decide on Monday whether to approve Pfizer’s (PFE.N) COVID-19 booster vaccine.
According to Reuters, who made this known from after talking to two officials and sourcing from internal document.
If the European Medicines Agency (EMA) gives its backing for the jab, the 27-member block would join the United States, Britain and Israel which have already received the green light to deploy boosters, even though there is no consensus among scientists that they are necessary.
“On 4 October the EMA will deliver an opinion on the need for Pfizer boosters for the general population,” EMA’s head Emer Cooke told EU lawmakers in an internal meeting on Tuesday, according to minutes of the discussion seen by Reuters.
More than a dozen EU countries have already started administering boosters without official EMA backing.
Official approval will provide legal protection to those countries and may spur others to launch a booster programme to fight the more infectious Delta variant during the winter months.