SINGAPORE (Dec 14): Singapore became today the first Asian country to approve Pfizer-BioNTech's coronavirus vaccine and said it expects to start receiving shots by the end of the year. The government said it expects to have secured enough vaccines for everyone by the third quarter of next year. The city state's top health official, Kenneth Mak, told a news conference that Singapore had secured enough vaccines for all residents. The United States, Canada, and a handful of other countries have approved the Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE vaccine, with a mass inoculation programme also underway in Britain. Worldwide, more than 70 million people have been infected with the virus, with 1.61 million deaths, according to a Reuters tally.

Source: The Edge Markets December 14, 2020 09:50 UTC