TORONTO (AP) – The World Health Organization has granted an emergency authorization for the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine, a measure that should allow UN agency partners to send millions of doses to countries around the world as part of a UN-backed program to domesticate the pandemic.
In a statement on Monday, the WHO said it was eliminating AstraZeneca vaccines manufactured by the Serum Institute of India and AstraZeneca-SKBio of South Korea.
The WHO green light for the AstraZeneca vaccine is only the second to be released by the UN health agency after authorizing the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in December. Monday’s announcement is expected to result in the delivery of hundreds of millions of doses to countries that have signed up to the UN-backed COVAX effort, which aims to deliver vaccines to the world’s most vulnerable people.
“Countries without access to vaccines so far will be able to start vaccinating their health workers and their populations at risk,” said Dr Mariângela Simão, WHO’s deputy director-general for access to medicines and health products.
The coronavirus pandemic has infected nearly 109 million people worldwide and killed at least 2.4 million. But many of the countries in the world have not yet started vaccination programs and even rich nations are facing shortage of vaccine doses as manufacturers struggle to increase production.
The AstraZeneca vaccine is already licensed 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 refrigerated storage that is not widespread in many developing countries. Both vaccines require two shots per person, unlike weeks.
Last week, WHO vaccination experts recommended the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine for people over the age of 18, including in countries that have detected COVID-19 variants.
But this was contrary to the recommendation of the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that countries that had first identified a variant of the virus seen in South Africa should be “cautious” in their use of the vaccine. AstraZeneca, suggesting that priority would be given to other shots. However.
The AstraZeneca vaccine makes up the bulk of COVAX’s current reserve and concerns were recently raised after an initial study suggested it might not prevent mild to moderate illnesses caused by the variant first seen in South Africa. Last week, South Africa reduced the planned launch of the AstraZeneca vaccine, opting to use an unlicensed shot from Johnson & Johnson for its health workers.
COVAX has already missed its own goal of starting coronavirus vaccines in poor countries at the same time that shots were fired in rich countries. Many developing countries have rushed in recent weeks to sign their own private agreements to buy vaccines, without wanting to wait for COVAX.
The WHO and its partners, including the GAVI vaccine alliance, have not said which countries will receive the first doses of COVAX. But an initial plan showed that a handful of rich countries that have signed multiple private vaccine agreements, including Canada, South Korea and New Zealand, are also scheduled to receive early doses of COVAX.
Some public health experts said this was “very problematic” and attributed it to the faulty design of COVAX, which allowed donor countries to bend. buying vaccines from the program and at the same time signing their own commercial deals.
“Canada has ordered enough doses to supply its population about five times as much and now they want to accept their share of doses of COVAX, which would otherwise be given to poor nations,” said Anna Marriott, head of policy Oxfam International.
WHO chief scientist Dr Soumya Swaminathan has said rich countries that have signed up to receive COVAX vaccines will not be denied their requests.
“The COVAX facility will not penalize countries,” he 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 get vaccines through COVAX.
Marriott said rich countries planning to take doses of COVAX should reconsider their intentions, given their previous calls for support for the goal of equal access to vaccines for all nations in the world. , rich or poor.
“She looks pretty hypocritical,” he said. “Rich countries with their own supplies should call correctly and not take vaccines from countries that are really in a dire situation.”
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This story corrects that the doses will be sent by WHO partners, not AstraZeneca partners.
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