There has been much talk surrounding the COVID-19 vaccine lately as many pharmaceutical companies are inching closer to finalising vaccines, with the Pfizer vaccine being approved for us in the UK earlier this week. This left us wondering when Malta would jump on this wagon.

In comments to Times of Malta, Health Minister Chris Fearne shared that the vaccine will roll out in Malta by the first week of 2021 as Europe’s medicines regulator has imposed an approval deadline (29^th December).

Fearne shared that the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine will be shipped to the islands the day after it is approved by the regulator. Quoted in Politico during a meeting with the EU’s health ministers, Fearne praised the vaccine procurements efforts but also said that it could be a helpful way forward for the European Medicines Agency to “explain to us, and more importantly to the wider European general public” why there was a delay in such a decision, seeing as the UK will be distributing the vaccine immediately.

Fearne also told Times that the agency is currently carrying our detailed studies of the vaccine. He also confirmed that Malta will receive up to 500,000 jabs over a period of months with frontliners and the elderly being first in line to receive it.

However, despite good news in the vaccine department, Fearne urged the population not to let their guard down or that measures will be removed. “We can’t relax the measures at once, the process will take some months, but we’re optimistic we could vaccinate the Maltese population within six months. We’ve started on the road to recovery.”