Why is Switzerland not in a hurry to approve the Covid-19 vaccine?

While the whole world is desperately waiting to have a vaccine to provide protection to its citizens against the Covid-19 vaccine, Switzerland has decided to take a more cautious approach.

The country is not in favour of giving permission to any vaccine under Emergency Use Authorisation (EUA) for mass vaccination.

Under EAU, the drug regulators give permission after accepting the claims of the pharmaceutical companies and without examining the clinical trials.

According to reports both Britain and Russia will begin mass vaccination this week. The USA and other European countries are also trying to give permission to the vaccines and start the mass vaccination process in their respective countries.

So far as India is concerned, according to reports, three firms – Pfizer, Serum Institute of India (SII), and Bharat Biotech – have applied for EUA and the Drug Controller of India will take a call on it.

Vaccine experts from Switzerland are of the view that the country is not a worse hit for Covid-19 and hence it has decided to go slow on vaccinating its citizens.

The experts say that it is understood that those countries, where the virus is affecting lives more and causing big damage, are hurrying to give approval and vaccinate its citizens.

Experts also say that they want to see more data on the safety and efficacy of the medicine. The authorities might take more than a month to see the impact of the vaccine on people.

Reports are also emerging from some countries where some percentage of the population wants to wait for the safety and efficacy aspect of the vaccine to be verified further.