UN health agency says emergency list “opens the door” for countries to speed up their vaccine approval processes.
The World Health Organization has listed Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use, a critical step that, according to the United Nations Health Organization, aims to make the vaccine more readily available in developing countries.
In a statement on Thursday, the WHO said its validation of the vaccine – the first since the start of the pandemic – “opens the door for countries to accelerate their own regulatory approval processes for the import and administration of the vaccine.”
It will also allow groups such as UNICEF and the Pan-American Health Organization to “purchase the vaccine for distribution to countries in need,” the WHO said.
“This is a very positive step towards global access to COVID-19 vaccines,” said Dr. Mariangela Simao, WHO’s assistant director general for access to medicines and health products, in the statement.
“But I want to stress the need for an even greater global effort to achieve adequate vaccine supply to meet the needs of priority populations around the world.”
Boxes of Pfizer-BioNtech COVID-19 vaccines arrive at a secret location in Nicosia, Cyprus on December 26, 2020. [Stavros Ioannides/PIO/Handout via Reuters]
The WHO said the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine met safety requirements and the benefits outweighed the potential risks.
The vaccine, which must be stored at ultra-low temperatures, is already being administered in several countries, including the United States, Canada, Qatar, Bahrain and Mexico.
Human rights groups have expressed concern that wealthier countries are “hoarding” vaccines at the expense of developing countries.
A recent report from Amnesty International found that all of Moderna Inc’s COVID-19 vaccines and 96 percent of Pfizer-BioNtech’s doses were insured by wealthy countries, including Canada, the United Kingdom and the US.
“Many countries have, understandably, seen the vaccine as a way out of this crisis and it has been a race,” Stephen Cockburn, Amnesty’s chief of economic and social justice, told Al Jazeera this month.
“Rather than working together, we have had a ‘me first’ attitude in many countries and there is a lack of multilateralism and global coordination in the world.”
Health workers hold syringes containing the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at University Hospital in Nitra, Slovakia, December 26, 2020 [Radovan Stoklasa/Reuters]
The director of Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, John Nkengasong, also warned that Africa may not see vaccines until after the second quarter of 2021.
Nkengasong called it a “moral issue” and urged the UN to convene a special session to discuss the ethical and fair distribution of vaccines to “address this North-South distrust of vaccines, which is a public concern. ” to avoid.
The UN health agency, with the GAVI Vaccine Alliance and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), is leading a global effort called COVAX to secure and distribute vaccines to poorer countries, to ensure that shots don’t just go to rich countries to go.
The WHO-backed COVAX alliance has deals for nearly two billion doses, with first deliveries in early 2021.
The alliance is in talks with Pfizer and BioNTech to secure a vaccine.