Germany says it chose longer approval process of COVID vaccines than UK to boost trust

Germany has opted for a longer procedure to approve COVID-19 vaccines than the emergency process chosen by Britain for the shot developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, because it wanted to increase confidence in vaccines, the country's health minister said on Wednesday.

"We have member states including, Germany, who could have issued such an emergency authorisation if we'd wanted to. But we decided against this and what we opted for was a common European approach to move forward together," Jens Spahn told a news conference when asked about the British emergency procedure for Pfizer vaccine.

"It's very important we do this to help promote trust and confidence in this authorisation," he added.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)