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GENEVA – The World Health Organization on Monday listed the AstraZeneca and Covid-19 vaccine from the University of Oxford for emergency use, expanding access to the relatively inexpensive vaccine in developing countries.
“We now have all the parts in place for rapid vaccine distribution. But we still need to increase production,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, told a press briefing.
“We continue to call on developers of Covid-19 vaccines to submit their dossiers to the WHO for review at the same time as they submit them to regulators in high-income countries,” he said.
A WHO statement said it had approved the vaccine as produced by AstraZeneca-SKBio (Republic of Korea) and the Serum Institute of India.
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The listing by the United Nations health agency comes days after a WHO panel provided interim recommendations on the vaccine, claiming that two doses with an interval of about 8 to 12 weeks should be given to all adults and can be used in countries with the South African variant. of the coronavirus, as well.
The WHO review found that the Astrazeneca vaccine met “must-have” safety criteria and that its benefits in terms of efficacy outweighed its risks.
The AstraZeneca-Oxford shot has been praised for being cheaper and easier to distribute than some competitors, including that from Pfizer-BioNTech, which was listed for emergency use by the WHO in late December.
Nearly 109 million people are believed to have been infected with the novel coronavirus worldwide and more than 2.5 million have died, according to a Reuters tally.
Infections have been reported in more than 210 countries and territories since the first cases were identified in China in December 2019.
AstraZeneca vaccine doses represent the lion’s share of doses in the COVAX coronavirus vaccine sharing program, with more than 330 million doses of the vaccine set to start rolling out in poorer countries from the end of the year. month of february.
WHO has implemented its Emergency Use List (EUL) process to help poorer countries without their own regulatory resources quickly approve drugs for new diseases like Covid-19, which could otherwise result in delays.
The COVAX facility, co-led by the Gavi Vaccine Alliance, the World Health Organization, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and the United Nations Children’s Fund, said doses would cover an average of 3, 3% of the total population of 145 participating countries.
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