TORONTO (AP) – The World Health Organization has issued an emergency permit for AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine, a move that will enable the UN agency’s partners to ship millions of doses to countries around the world as part of a UN-backed program to to tame the pandemic.
In a statement on Monday, the WHO said it is cleaning up AstraZeneca vaccines from the Serum Institute of India and AstraZeneca-SKBio from South Korea.
The WHO green light for the AstraZeneca vaccine is only the second issued by the UN health agency following approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in December. Monday’s announcement should lead to the delivery of hundreds of millions of doses to countries that have signed up for the UN-backed COVAX effort, which aims to deliver vaccines to the world’s most vulnerable people.
“Countries that do not have access to vaccines so far will finally be able to start vaccinating their health workers and high-risk populations,” said Dr. Mariângela Simão, WHO’s deputy director general for access to medicines and health products.
The coronavirus pandemic has infected approximately 109 million people worldwide and killed at least 2.4 million of them. But many of the world’s countries have not yet embarked on vaccination programs, and even rich countries are struggling with vaccine dose shortages as manufacturers struggle to ramp up production.
The AstraZeneca vaccine has already been approved in more than 50 countries, including Great Britain, India, Argentina and Mexico. It is cheaper and easier to handle than the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which requires deep cold storage that is not widespread in many developing countries. Both vaccines require two injections per person, weeks apart.
Last week, WHO vaccine experts recommended the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine for people over the age of 18, including in countries that have discovered variants of COVID-19.
But that went against the recommendation of the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which said countries that had identified a virus variant first seen in South Africa should be ‘cautious’ when using the AstraZeneca. vaccine, suggesting that other injections are given priority. instead.
The AstraZeneca vaccine makes up the bulk of the current supply of COVAX and concerns were raised recently after an early study suggested it might not be able to cause mild and moderate disease caused by the variant first seen in South Africa appearance. Last week, South Africa scaled back the planned rollout of the AstraZeneca vaccine and instead opted for an unlicensed injection of Johnson & Johnson for its health workers.
COVAX has already missed its own goal of starting coronavirus vaccinations in poor countries while shots were rolled out in rich countries. Numerous developing countries have rushed to sign their own private contracts to buy vaccines in recent weeks, unwilling to wait for COVAX
WHO and its partners, including the vaccine alliance GAVI, have not said which countries will receive the first doses of COVAX. But an initial plan showed that a handful of wealthy countries that have multiple private vaccine deals, including Canada, South Korea and New Zealand, will also receive early doses of COVAX.
Some public health experts called this “very problematic” and attributed it to the flawed design of COVAX, which allowed donor countries to make a double dip by purchasing vaccines from the program while signing their own commercial deals.
“Canada has ordered enough doses to supply their population about five times over and now they want to accept their share of the doses of COVAX that would otherwise be given to poor countries,” said Anna Marriott, Oxfam International’s chief of health policy.
Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, WHO chief scientist, has said rich countries that have signed up to receive vaccines from COVAX will not refuse their requests.
“The COVAX facility is not going to penalize countries,” she said in early February.
After pledging more than $ 400 million to COVAX last year, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his country’s goal was always to get vaccines through COVAX.
Marriott said wealthy countries planning to take doses of COVAX should reconsider their intentions, given their previous calls for support for the goal of the effort to achieve equal access to vaccines for all countries in the world, rich or poor. .
“It seems quite hypocritical,” she said. “Rich countries with their own supplies should make the right decision and not take vaccines from countries that are in a really dire situation.”
This story corrects that doses will be sent by WHO’s partners, not AstraZeneca’s partners.
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