The World Health Organization on Monday authorized the use of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine, paving the way for cheap, easy-to-store vaccines to be distributed in low- and middle-income countries around the world.
A small clinical trial in South Africa recently failed to show that the vaccine could prevent people from acquiring mild or moderate cases of Covid-19 caused by a variant of the coronavirus spreading there. But this vaccine protected all participants against serious illness and death in other tests and can still prevent serious illness and death caused by the variant first detected in South Africa.
The authorization, expected after a panel of WHO experts recommended the use of the vaccine last week, was applied to the two vaccine manufacturers: AstraZeneca and the Serum Institute, the Indian producer that will supply many doses for the Covax initiative to bring vaccines to the poorest regions in the world.
WHO last year authorized the Pfizer-BionNTech vaccine. But his decision on the AstraZeneca vaccine was highly anticipated, because the low price and easy storage requirements have made the vaccine the backbone of implementation plans in many countries around the world.
“Countries without access to vaccines so far will finally be able to start vaccinating their health professionals and populations at risk, contributing to the Covax Facility’s goal of equitable distribution of the vaccine”, Dr. Mariângela Simão, WHO’s deputy general director for access to medicines and health products, said in a statement.
The WHO panel of experts recommended that the AstraZeneca vaccine be used in all adults and in countries where new variants are circulating. Countries are expected to begin receiving their first installments of Covax’s AstraZeneca vaccine in late February.
In announcing authorization for the vaccine on Monday, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, said that although virus cases appear to be decreasing in many parts of the world, countries need to remain vigilant.
“If we stop fighting it on any front,” he said, “it will come roaring again.”
After the results of the small clinical trial of the AstraZeneca vaccine in South Africa were released, South Africa decided to discontinue plans to distribute it. Instead, South Africa was planning to inoculate health workers with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which prevented hospitalizations and deaths in clinical trials in the country.
The WHO panel that examined the AstraZeneca vaccine also advised that it be given to adults, regardless of their age, breaking with a number of European countries that have chosen to restrict the use of the vaccine to younger people. He recommended that the two doses of the vaccine be administered every four to 12 weeks, citing evidence that the vaccine appears to work best when the second dose is postponed.