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New York (AP) - The pharmaceutical company Pfizer has had to halve the delivery target for its corona vaccine this year, among other things due to delays in expanding the supply chain.
The expansion is taking longer than expected, said a company spokeswoman for the Wall Street Journal.
In addition, the results of the clinical study were available later than originally thought.
According to the newspaper, Pfizer held internally until mid-November to deliver 100 million vaccine doses by the end of this year.
Most recently, however, the company spoke of 50 million cans.
For the coming year, the original plan to deliver more than a billion vaccine doses will remain, the newspaper continued.
Those who get vaccinated need two doses to be protected.
Pfizer developed the vaccine together with the German manufacturer Biontech from Mainz.
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The newspaper report, citing a person involved in vaccine development, stated that some components did not meet standards in early production.
The group initially did not respond to a request for further information.
The British Medicines Agency granted Pfizer and Biontech emergency approval for their corona vaccine on Wednesday.
The UK is the first country to issue a clearance certificate for the vaccine.
The US Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency Ema are currently examining such applications.
In the USA, emergency approval is expected in mid-December.
According to this week, the US government expects to have Pfizer's corona vaccine available to 6.4 million people by the end of the year.
In addition, by the end of the year 12.5 million people in the USA could also receive the vaccine from the biotech company Moderna, for which the approval process is also ongoing.
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According to the detailed study, the vaccine from Pfizer and Biontech protects against the disease Covid-19 with an efficiency of 95 percent.
The preparation is a so-called mRNA vaccine, which is based on a new mechanism.
It contains genetic information about the pathogen, from which the body produces a virus protein - in this case the surface protein that the virus uses to enter cells.
The aim of vaccination is to stimulate the body to produce antibodies against this protein in order to intercept the viruses before they enter the cells and multiply.
Experts are still waiting for more data to be able to say with certainty whether vaccinated people can transmit the virus even if they do not fall ill themselves.
In addition to Biontech / Pfizer, several other pharmaceutical companies are currently working on corona vaccines at an advanced stage, including Johnson & Johnson, Astrazeneca and Sanofi-GSK.
Countries like Russia, China and recently Bahrain have already released vaccines with restrictions and are already vaccinating parts of the population.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 201204-99-566451 / 2