Shot developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca is cheaper and easier to distribute than some other offers.
The United Nations health agency listed the COVID-19 vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca for emergency use, days after a panel of experts recommended using the products in locations where variants of the coronavirus are circulating.
A statement from the World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday said it approved the relatively cheap vaccine produced by AstraZeneca-SKBio (South Korea) and the Serum Institute in India.
“We already have all the parts ready for the rapid distribution of vaccines. But we still need to increase production, ”said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of WHO, at a news conference.
“We continue to ask developers of the COVID-19 vaccine to send their dossiers to WHO for review while submitting them to regulators in high-income countries,” he said.
The WHO list came days after its Strategic Advisory Group of Immunization Experts provided tentative recommendations on the vaccine, saying that two doses with an interval of eight to 12 weeks should be administered to all adults and can be used in all countries. , including those where a new variant of the coronavirus first identified in South Africa was present.
The country stopped part of the implementation of the AstraZeneca vaccine last week after data from a small trial showed that it did not protect against mild to moderate diseases of the 501Y.V2 variant.
The WHO review concluded that the AstraZeneca vaccine met the “mandatory” safety criteria and that its effectiveness benefits outweighed its risks.
The Oxford-AstraZeneca photo was praised because it is cheaper and can be stored at normal refrigerator temperatures. This makes it easier to distribute than some rivals, including the one developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, which was listed for emergency use by WHO in late December.
Nearly 109 million people were infected with the new coronavirus worldwide and more than 2.5 million died.
The doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine constitute the majority of the doses in the initiative to share the COVAX vaccine against coronavirus.
Rory Challands, from Al Jazeera, said COVAX is a project that aims to provide equitable access to vaccines for low and middle income countries.
More than 330 million doses of the vaccine are expected to begin to be launched in poorer countries from the end of February.
“Countries that currently do not have access to vaccines can start vaccinating their health care workers and their most at risk groups,” said Challands, speaking of East Sussex.
“The fear was with the whole COVID-19 pandemic is that it would be the wealthiest countries that would buy all the vaccines and that there would not be enough for everyone.”
A health officer receives a dose of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, at Infectious Diseases Hospital in Colombo, Sri Lanka, January 29, 2021 [File: Dinuka Liyanawatte/Reuters]