GENEVA: One should not panic about getting access to the COVID-19 vaccine because everyone who wants one will get one, the World Health Organization said Wednesday (January 20).
WHO deputy director general Mariangela Simao said the UN health agency was working to ensure access to coronavirus injections worldwide.
“No one needs to panic, because you’re going to get vaccinated,” said Simao, the deputy general director for access to medicines, vaccines and medicines.
“We have worked hard to ensure that every country, every population, has access to these vaccines,” she told a live event on WHO social media.
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Simao said about 50 countries have started vaccination campaigns, with more than 40 of them high-income states.
The WHO co-directed COVAX facility, a worldwide vaccine supply and distribution effort, has reached agreements with five manufacturers for 2 billion vaccine doses.
It aims to get vaccines for 20 per cent of the population in each participating country by the end of the year, with funding covered for the 92 lower- and middle-income economies. level of involvement.
“We expect the first doses to reach the countries by the end of February,” Simao said.
NASAL VACCINE?
According to the WHO overview of candidate vaccines, 64 have been tested on humans, 22 of which have reached major end-stage trials.
A further 173 candidate vaccines are being developed in laboratories with a view to recent human trials.
WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan hailed the “truly amazing” field, saying it was important to have several vaccines with different properties.
To date, the WHO has only approved emergency use certification for the two-dose Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which requires ultra-cold storage.
“That’s a problem in a lot of countries,” Swaminathan said.
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She said vaccines were in development requiring only one injection; nasal breath vaccine; and versions that will be much more accessible than those already in use.
“There may be a lot of vaccines that have benefits over the first generation,” Swaminathan said.
“What we want to see is infection prevention. Infection prevention is another issue. But that’s high school,” she said.
“We will learn about the effectiveness of this vaccine in preventing the spread of infection from person to person. Some vaccines carry sterilizing immunity: They stop infection, they disease prevention.
“Some vaccines do not stop infection but prevent infection. At this stage we are still waiting to see the results of the studies to find out which COVID vaccines are going to prevent successfully prevent infection. Hopefully they should. “
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