Washington (AFP)

The United States gave the green light to Pfizer / BioNTech's vaccine against Covid-19 on Friday evening, paving the way for a massive vaccination campaign across the country with a first injection promised by Donald Trump "in less than 24 hours .

Under pressure from the head of state to speed up the emergency authorization, the United States Medicines Agency (FDA) announced in a letter that it had given its blessing to the remedy.

The United States thus becomes the sixth country to approve the vaccine of the American-German alliance, after the United Kingdom, Canada, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Mexico.

The European Medicines Agency is expected to issue an opinion by the end of December.

"Today our country has achieved a medical miracle," said Donald Trump in a short video posted on Twitter.

"We have already started sending the vaccine to all states" of the country, he added.

"The first vaccine will be administered in less than 24 hours."

Friday morning, he had displayed his impatience with the FDA.

According to several media, Mr. Trump's chief of staff had even demanded that the director of the FDA finalize the authorization process on Friday, or else resign.

The decision was initially expected over the weekend.

Only three weeks have passed since the manufacturers filed their application for authorization for this vaccine, of which the United States had pre-purchased 100 million doses.

The country also bought on Friday 100 million additional doses of another vaccine, that of Moderna, thus doubling the number of doses pre-ordered from this American biotechnology company.

The country most affected in the world by the epidemic in absolute figures is currently chaining sad records: nearly 235,000 cases of Covid-19 were identified in 24 hours on Friday, unprecedented.

Just before the United States, Mexico approved the marketing of Pfizer's vaccine.

Vaccination should begin at the end of December, with a first batch of 250,000 doses for the administration of the product, in two times, to 125,000 people.

- "High risk" -

Worldwide, the new coronavirus has killed at least 1,582,721 people, for nearly 70 million confirmed infections, according to a report established by AFP.

Brazil, in the middle of the second wave, passed the 180,000 death threshold on Friday.

Europe is the area that recorded the most new contaminations this week (+236,700 on average per day).

The pandemic, which had been receding since mid-November, has stabilized there at a high level.

In France (nearly 57,000 dead), there is a "high risk" of an outbreak "in the coming weeks", alerted the public health body France on Friday, which calls for "greater vigilance, especially in the perspective end of year celebrations ".

The French government announced Thursday evening a cautious deconfinement from December 15, while maintaining restrictions: curfew from 8:00 p.m. every day, including December 31 (but not on December 24), continued closure of cinemas, theaters and museums at least until January 7.

"We would have been irresponsible to open up and pretend everything was going very well," President Emmanuel Macron explained on Friday.

“Christmas is in our hands,” he said.

"Obviously, we have to meet, but less than usual for Christmas, less numerous".

The pandemic is also "too high and dangerous" in neighboring Belgium, partially confined, warned virologist Steven Van Gucht, spokesperson for health authorities, on Friday.

The new contaminations have hardly decreased for two weeks and "the hospital load is still too high", he stressed.

As for Switzerland, with an "exponential" growth of the epidemic (+5,000 cases per day) and contamination rates among the highest in Europe, it is "in a critical situation", warned its president Simonetta Sommaruga .

The country adopted a package of measures on Friday including the closure of restaurants, bars, shops, leisure and sports establishments, museums and libraries at 7 p.m.

- Reverse for Sanofi / GSK -

The United Kingdom, the most bereaved country in Europe (63,082 dead), for its part announced that it was reducing the duration of its quarantine for travelers arriving from abroad or the "contact cases" of a patient from Covid, from 14 to 10 days.

Here too, the epidemiological situation remains precarious, with an outbreak of cases in London and the South East.

But the country launched its Covid-19 vaccination campaign on Tuesday, after being the first country to give the green light to Pfizer / BioNTech's vaccine.

French laboratories Sanofi and British GSK suffered a setback: they declared that their anti-Covid vaccine would not be ready until the end of 2021, after results less good than expected in the first clinical trials.

They are now counting on availability in the fourth quarter of 2021, while they were initially targeting an application for approval in the first half of the year.

Also on Friday, the British laboratory AstraZeneca and Russia announced clinical trials combining their two vaccines against the new coronavirus.

Recognition for the Russian product, praised by the authorities but freshly welcomed by Westerners.

burs-mba / iba / la

© 2020 AFP