BOGOTA (Reuters) – The World Health Organization may release AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine for emergencies as early as this week, an official from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said Wednesday.
“AstraZeneca’s vaccine is currently under evaluation. We expect the emergency use authorization to be announced Friday or next Monday, ”PAHO Deputy Director Jarbas Barbosa said during the group’s weekly briefing.
China’s Sinopharm and Sinovac shots could receive pre-qualification or emergency use approval in early March, Barbosa added.
WHO is also evaluating Moderna’s shot.
PAHO 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 vaccine program to gain entry, diplomats familiar with the situation tell Reuters.
While Venezuela should have already made its COVAX payment, given the country’s “tough” situation, PAHO is asking COVAX to be flexible in receiving the funds, Barbosa said.
While the Americas reported nearly half of all new global COVID-19 cases in the past week and the death toll continues to escalate, some hard-hit countries like the United States and Brazil are showing improvement, PAHO Director Dr. Carissa Etienne said during the briefing.
At least three newer, highly transmissible variants of the virus are present in the region, but PAHO is confident that COVID-19 vaccines will continue to be useful, she said.
“Based on the evidence we now have on the variants of care, we are confident that our growing portfolio of COVID-19 vaccines will continue to be useful and guide us through the end of this pandemic,” said Etienne.
“The challenge now remains to ensure that these vaccines are distributed quickly and fairly,” she added.
There were nearly 1.6 million new cases in the region, and the rising deaths show that many health systems remain overwhelmed, Etienne said.
Central American and Caribbean countries and the Amazon tri-country region of Brazil, Colombia and Peru are nodes of rising cases.
Reporting by Julia Symmes Cobb; Adaptation by Chizu Nomiyama and Bill Berkrot