On December 2 2020, Catholics attend the first Mass held in Knock Basilica in the west of Ireland after the end of Ireland’s second pandemic lockdown (Simon Roughneen)
DUBLIN — US health information and clinical research company IQVIA plans to appoint 170 people in Ireland to work on “ensuring vaccines administrated post authorization are safe for the public,” according to state investment agency IDA Ireland.
Barry Mulchrone, IQVIA Ireland’s head of pharmacovigilance oversight and analytics, said the company is “proud to play a role in the humanitarian effort to ensure the safety profile of vaccines used for Covid-19 are monitored to the highest international standards.”
Ireland’s Deputy Prime Minister (Tánaiste) Leo Varadkar welcomed the IQVIA recruitment announcement, citing “positive indications recently regarding the potential for a Covid-19 vaccine.”
The European Medicines Agency is reviewing four candidate vaccines, according to Ireland’s Health Minister Stephen Donnelly.
Donnelly said distribution of vaccines – if approved by the EMA – could be possible in European Union member-states by early 2021, less than a year before the novel coronavirus was declared a pandemic,
On Wednesday, Ireland’s nearest neighbour and former EU member Britain became the first country to officially approve the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.
There are over 100 vaccines being developed worldwide, a process that usually takes several years.
