The European Union has criticised the UK's rapid approval of Pfizer and BioNTech's Covid-19 vaccine, saying its own procedure was more thorough.
The move to grant emergency authorisation to the Pfizer/BioNTech was made under an ultra-fast, emergency approval process, which allowed the British drugs regulator to temporarily authorise the vaccine only ten days after it began examining data from large-scale trials.
In an unusually blunt statement, the European Medicines Agency (EMA), which is in charge of approving Covid-19 vaccines for the EU, said its longer approval procedure was more appropriate as it was based on more evidence and required more checks than the emergency procedure chosen by Britain.