European Medicines Agency recommends the Pfizer and BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for use in the EU

• The European Medicines Agency, the European Union's drug regulator, on Monday recommended authorization of the Pfizer and BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.
• The decision paves the way for EU citizens to access a COVID-19 vaccine.
• Pfizer recently released data that suggested the vaccine was 95% effective at preventing COVID-19 cases in late-stage trials.

The European Union's drug regulator on Monday recommended it authorize the Pfizer and BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.

Experts on the European Medicines Agency's human-medicines committee concluded the Pfizer vaccine was safe and effective for people 16 and older. The decision paves the way for an EU-wide authorization of the vaccine.

On December 2, the United Kingdom became the first Western nation to approve the Pfizer vaccine. It began inoculating citizens shortly after.

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Pfizer released data that suggested the vaccine was 95% effective at preventing COVID-19 cases in late-stage trials.

"Today's positive news is an important step forward in our fight against this pandemic, which has caused suffering and hardship for so many," Emer Cooke, the executive director of EMA, said in a release.

Cooke said the agency would continue to collect and analyze data on the Pfizer vaccine.