UK rejects Australian, Belgian attacks on vaccine rollout

LONDON: Britain on Wednesday pushed back after leaders in Australia and Belgium, under pressure for their slow rollout of coronavirus vaccinations, said it was rushing its world-first inoculation drive.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson's spokesman said health authorities were clear that approvals of two vaccines followed rigorous trials.

"No corners have been cut whatsoever... both are safe and effective," the spokesman told reporters. "The public should have confidence in them and take them when asked."

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Tuesday said he would not take "unnecessary risks" with swift vaccine approvals.

"Australia is not in an emergency situation like the United Kingdom. So we don't have to cut corners," Morrison said, defending his timetable to administer the first doses only by the end of March.

Meanwhile the European Union's medicines regulator only approved on Wednesday a second vaccination for the bloc's 450 million people, from US-based Moderna, on top of a Pfizer/BioNTech shot also approved in the UK.

Belgium's Deputy Prime Minister Petra De Sutter told Belgian TV Tuesday that Britain as well as others such as Russia and China were "vaccinating people with vaccines that don't meet the same standards that we're using".

Both De Sutter and Morrison faced criticism at home for seeking to deflect attention from their own governments' handling of the inoculation campaign.

Leading US infectious disease scientist Anthony Fauci said last month the UK regulator had "rushed" its first-in-the-world approval of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, but he later apologised.

US regulators are so far not following Britain's lead in spacing out recipients' first and second vaccine doses, in a bid to maximise the numbers who receive some measure of protection amid a wave of infections caused by a new strain of the coronavirus.

The World Health Organization has effectively endorsed the UK position.

But despite the country's accelerating inoculation drive, an England-wide lockdown resumed this week to try to combat the virulent new strain.

Britain also pressed China to cooperate with the WHO, after Beijing refused entry to a 10-strong team of WHO experts supposed to arrive there this week to probe the origins of the coronavirus.

"It's important the investigation is able to progress without delay and is open, rigorous and scientifically transparent," Johnson's spokesman said.