TORONTO (AP) – The World Health Organization has granted emergency authorization for the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine, a move that should allow UN agency partners to send millions of doses to countries as part of a UN-supported program to tame the disease. pandemic.
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson holds a bottle of AstraZeneca vaccine during a visit to a coronavirus vaccination center at the Health and Wellness Center in Orpington, south-east London, Monday, February 15, 2021 (Jeremy Selwyn / Pool Photo via AP)
In a statement on Monday, WHO said it was releasing AstraZeneca vaccines made by the Serum Institute of India and AstraZeneca-SKBio from South Korea.
The WHO green light for the AstraZeneca vaccine is only the second that the UN health agency issued after authorizing the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in December. Monday’s announcement is expected to trigger the delivery of hundreds of millions of doses to countries that have signed up for the UN-backed COVAX effort to deliver vaccines to the world’s most vulnerable people.
“Countries without access to vaccines so far will finally be able to start vaccinating their health professionals and populations at risk,” said Dr. Mariângela Simão, WHO Deputy Director-General for Access to Medicines and Health Products.
The coronavirus infected more than 109 million people and killed at least 2.4 million people. But many countries have not yet started vaccination programs and even wealthy nations are facing a shortage of vaccine doses as manufacturers struggle to increase production.
The AstraZeneca vaccine has already been authorized in more than 50 countries, including Britain, India, Argentina and Mexico. It is cheaper and easier to handle than the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which needs deep refrigeration storage that is not common in many developing countries. Both vaccines require two injections per person, weeks apart.
Last week, WHO vaccine experts recommended using the AstraZeneca vaccine for people over 18, including in countries that have detected variants of COVID-19.
But this was contrary to the recommendation of the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which stated that countries that identified a variant of the virus first seen in South Africa should be “cautious” in using the AstraZeneca vaccine, suggesting that other injections are prioritized instead of.
The AstraZeneca vaccine makes up the bulk of COVAX’s stock and concerns were raised recently after an initial study suggested that it may not prevent mild and moderate illnesses caused by the variant seen for the first time in South Africa. Last week, South Africa reduced its planned launch of the AstraZeneca vaccine, opting to use an unlicensed injection from Johnson & Johnson for its healthcare professionals.
COVAX has already lost its own goal of starting vaccination against coronavirus in poor countries, at the same time that vaccines were launched in rich countries. Numerous developing countries have rushed in recent weeks to sign their own private agreements to buy vaccines, not wanting to wait for COVAX.
WHO and its partners, including the GAVI vaccine alliance, did not say which countries would receive the first doses of COVAX. But an initial plan showed that a handful of wealthy countries that signed several private vaccine deals, including Canada, South Korea and New Zealand, are also scheduled to receive advance doses of COVAX.
Some public health experts considered this “very problematic” and attributed it to the faulty design of COVAX, which allowed donor countries to dive twice when purchasing vaccines from the program, while signing their own trade agreements.
“Canada has ordered enough doses to supply its population about five times and now they are looking to accept their share of the COVAX doses that would otherwise be given to poor countries,” said Anna Marriott, health policy leader at Oxfam International .
WHO chief scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan said that wealthy countries that applied to receive COVAX vaccines will not be denied their requests.
“The installation of COVAX will not penalize countries,” she said in early February.
After pledging more than $ 400 million to COVAX last year, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said it was always his country’s intention to obtain vaccines through COVAX.
Marriott said that wealthy countries planning to take doses of COVAX should reconsider their intentions, given their earlier calls to support the goal of equal vaccine access efforts for all nations in the world, rich or poor.
“It sounds quite hypocritical,” she said. “Rich countries with their own supplies must make the right decision and not take vaccines from countries that are really in a terrible situation.”
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This story corrects that doses will be sent by WHO partners, not AstraZeneca partners.
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