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Washington (AP) - After the emergency approval of the corona vaccine of the Mainz-based pharmaceutical company Biontech and its US partner Pfizer by the FDA, vaccination should start in the USA.

The first vaccinations are still expected today, according to several competent authorities on Sunday (local time).

First of all, employees of health facilities and residents of old people's and nursing homes are to be vaccinated.

It is the largest vaccination campaign in the country's history.

The vaccine, cooled with dry ice, had previously been packaged and delivered over the weekend after the emergency approval was granted on Friday.

Meanwhile, the total number of coronavirus infections in the United States, where the pandemic continues to run out of control, topped 16 million.

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After the approval by the FDA, the US health authority CDC officially recommended the use of the Biontech / Pfizer vaccine, as CDC director Rober Redfield announced on Sunday.

This is the final formality before you can start vaccinating.

Redfield and FDA chief Stephen Hahn both said on Sunday that they expected vaccinations to be available starting Monday.

US media reported that the first trucks with more than 184,000 vaccine doses left the Pfizer factory in Kalamazoo, Michigan, on Sunday morning.

FDA chief Hahn had called the emergency approval a "significant milestone in the fight against this devastating pandemic".

Biontech co-founder Ugur Sahin said approval and upcoming use of the vaccine would "help save lives across the US and accelerate the return to normal".

According to media reports, the White House is said to have urged the FDA for immediate emergency approval with threats of dismissal.

FDA chief Hahn rejected this on Saturday.

"Science and data guided the FDA's decision," he said.

US President Donald Trump had described the authority on Twitter as a "big, old, slow turtle".

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Pfizer and Biontech had also applied to the European Medicines Agency (Ema) for approval of the corona vaccine;

a decision is still pending.

At the beginning of the month, the British authorities gave this preparation an emergency approval.

Canada, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Mexico followed.

The Gulf state of Kuwait also issued the vaccine with emergency approval, as a representative of the Ministry of Health announced on Sunday.

Russian and Chinese vaccines are already in use in several countries.

The Republican Trump lost the election in the United States on November 3rd to the Democrat Joe Biden.

Experts also attribute this to Trump's much-criticized pandemic management.

After being sworn in on January 20, Biden wants to implement a 100-day plan to fight the corona virus.

This includes giving at least 100 million doses of a vaccine within this period.

The US government has contractually secured the delivery of 100 million vaccine doses from Pfizer / Biontech.

The US pharmaceutical company Moderna announced on Friday that the US government was buying another 100 million doses of its vaccine candidate.

These cans would be delivered in the second quarter of 2021.

The Moderna vaccine has yet to be approved by the FDA and a decision is expected later this week.

© dpa-infocom, dpa: 201214-99-681507 / 2