Decision on whether Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine will be used in NZ expected today

The Government's expected to make an announcement today on whether the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine will be approved for use in New Zealand.

The country's medical regulator, Medafe, met yesterday for final discussions on the jab.

If approved, it will be the first Covid-19 vaccine to get sign off in New Zealand.

The country has ordered 1.5 million doses, which are expected to be delivered in batches from March.

Border workers will be first to get the jab, with the next group being high-risk frontline health workers and frontline public sector and emergency service staff. The third group would be older people and those with underlying health conditions, and also at-risk health and social service workers.

Medsafe will be closely reviewing data from Pfizer's clinical trials as well as the results taken from countries such as the United States and United Kingdom, which have already begun administering the jab.

Its main job is to decide whether they believe that this specific Covid-19 vaccine is safe and effective enough for wide distribution and isn't likely to get approval if there isn't enough data to suggest this.