The UN health agency says listing emergency use ‘opens the door’ for countries to speed up their immunization consent processes.
The World Health Organization has listed the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use, an emergency measure said by the United Nations health agency that aims to make vaccination easier in developing countries.
In a statement on Thursday, the WHO said its trial of the vaccine – the first since the spread of the pandemic – “opens the door for countries to speed up their own regulatory consent processes to get the vaccine in and administer ”.
It will also allow organizations, such as UNICEF and the Pan-American Health Organization, “to have the vaccine distributed to countries in need,” the WHO said.
“This is a very positive step towards ensuring global access to COVID-19 vaccines,” Dr Mariangela Simao, WHO deputy director general for access to medicines and health products, said in the statement.
“But I want to emphasize the need for an even greater global effort to achieve adequate vaccine supply to meet the needs of priority populations everywhere.”
Boxes of Pfizer-BioNtech COVID-19 vaccines will arrive undelivered in Nicosia, Cyprus, 26 December 2020. [Stavros Ioannides/PIO/Handout via Reuters]
WHO said the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine met its safety requirements and that its benefits outweighed any potential risks.
The vaccine, which needs to be kept at ultra-low temperatures, is already being given in several countries, including the United States, Canada, Qatar, Bahrain and Mexico.
Human rights groups have raised concerns about richer countries “collecting” vaccines at the expense of developing countries.
A recent report by Amnesty International found that Moderna Inc’s COVID-19 vaccine and 96 percent of Pfizer-BioNtech doses were guaranteed by affluent countries, including Canada, the United Kingdom and the US .
“Many countries have seen the vaccine, so sensibly, as the way out of this crisis and it has been a race,” Stephen Cockburn, Amnesty’s head of economic and social justice, told Al Jazeera on this month.
“Instead of working together, we have had a ‘me first’ perspective in many countries and there has been a lack of multilateralism and global coordination in the world.”
Healthcare workers hold syringes with the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at the University Hospital of Nitra, Slovakia, 26 December 2020 [Radovan Stoklasa/Reuters]
Director of the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention John Nkengasong also warned that Africa may not see vaccines until after the second quarter of 2021.
Nkengasong said it was a “moral issue” and urged the UN to convene a special session to consider the ethical and fair distribution of vaccines to “avoid this north-south confidence in vaccines, which is very common ”.
The DA health agency, together with the GAVI Vaccine Alliance and the Confederation for Epidemic Preparation Innovation (CEPI), is leading a global effort called COVAX to secure and distribute vaccines to poor countries, to ensure that shots only go to rich countries.
The COVAX alliance has WHO-backed agreements for nearly two billion doses, with the first delivery due in early 2021.
The alliance has been in talks with Pfizer and BioNTech to get vaccinated.