THE Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine has been approved for use in the UK, and could be available from as soon as next week.

The UK has become the first country in the world to approve the Covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech.

The jab has been shown in studies to be 95% effective and works in all age groups.

The UK has ordered 40 million doses of the vaccine, enough to vaccinate 20 million people.

Around 10 million doses will be available for use in the UK shortly for priority groups, including healthcare workers.

A list of who will receive the vaccine first will be set out later on Wednesday.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) had approved the jab after “months of rigorous clinical trials and a thorough analysis of the data by experts” from the regulator.

He said they have concluded that the vaccine has “met its strict standards of safety, quality and effectiveness”.

Sir Simon Stevens, chief executive of the NHS in England, said the vaccination programme would be the “largest-scale vaccination campaign in our country’s history”.

In a statement, he said: “This is an important next step in our response to the coronavirus pandemic and hospitals will shortly kick off the first phase of the largest-scale vaccination campaign in our country’s history.

“The NHS has a proven track record of delivering large-scale vaccinations from the winter flu jab to BCG and, once the final hurdles are cleared and the vaccine arrives in England’s hospitals, health service staff will begin offering people this ground-breaking jab in a programme that will expand to cover the whole country in the coming months.”