The first vaccine against the new coronavirus approved for emergency use by the World Health Organization is the Comirnaty COVID-19 mRNA, produced by Pfizer / BioNTech, the WHO announced.
The global health agency announced emergency approval on Thursday, when 2020 came to an end. Its Emergency Use List (EUL) will allow countries to streamline their own regulatory approval of the vaccine and will allow UNICEF and the Pan American Health Organization to purchase it for distribution, the WHO said.
“This is a very positive step towards ensuring global access to [Covid]-19 vaccines, ” Dr. Mariângela Simão, WHO deputy director-general for access to medicines and health products, said in a statement. She added this “An even bigger global effort” is needed to provide enough to meet the needs of “Priority populations everywhere”, Yet.
WHO is “Working night and day to evaluate other vaccines that have reached safety and efficacy standards”, said Simon, urging other developers to “Come for review and evaluation.”
The first vaccine against Covid-19 in the world was actually registered by Russia, which had requested EUL from WHO in late October for its injection of Sputnik-V. This certification is still pending.
The Pfizer vaccine was the first to be approved for emergency use in the United States on December 11. Moderna’s vaccine came a week later.
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