AstraZeneca Emergency Use Clearance May Come This Week: PAHO

BOGOTA (Reuters) – The World Health Organization may allow AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use as early as this week, a Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) official said on Wednesday.

“AstraZeneca’s vaccine is being evaluated. We expect the emergency use authorization to be released next Friday or Monday, ”PAHO Deputy Director Jarbas Barbosa said at the group’s weekly briefing.

Chinese injections of Sinopharm and Sinovac could get prequalification or emergency use approval by early March, Barbosa added.

The WHO is also evaluating the shooting of Moderna.

PAHO has previously said it is reserving up to 2.4 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine for Venezuela. The country must pay more than $ 100 million to the COVAX vaccination program to gain access, diplomats familiar with the situation told Reuters.

Although Venezuela should have already made its COVAX payment, given the “difficult” situation in the country, PAHO is asking COVAX to be flexible in receiving funds, Barbosa said.

Although the Americas have reported nearly half of all new global COVID-19 cases in the past week and deaths continue to rise, some heavily affected countries like the United States and Brazil are showing improvement , PAHO Director Dr Carissa Etienne said at the meeting.

At least three new, highly transmissible variants of the virus are present in the region, but PAHO is confident that COVID-19 vaccines remain useful, she said.

“Based on the evidence we now have on the worrisome variants, we are confident that our growing portfolio of COVID-19 vaccines remains useful and will guide us through to the end of this pandemic,” Etienne said.

“The challenge now remains to ensure that these vaccines are distributed quickly and fairly,” she added.

There have been nearly 1.6 million new cases in the region and the increase in the number of deaths shows that many health systems remain overwhelmed, Etienne said.

The countries of Central America and the Caribbean and the region of the three Amazonian borders of Brazil, Colombia and Peru are hubs of the increase in cases.