GENEVA
The World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday listed the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine as the first such drug to receive its emergency diagnosis since the coronavirus revolution began a year ago.
“This is a very positive step towards ensuring global access to COVID-19 vaccines,” said Dr Mariangela Simao, WHO deputy director general for access to medicines and health products.
“But I want to emphasize the need for an even greater global effort to achieve adequate vaccine supply to meet the needs of priority numbers everywhere,” she said.
A year ago, when Beijing first identified a new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, which led to the COVID-19 pandemic, there were no known cases outside China.
But today, there are more than 83 million cases of COVID-19 and more than 1.8 million confirmed global deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University of Medicine in the US.
On 2 December, the UK became the first Western country to approve a vaccine against COVID-19 when it gave the green light to a man made by US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and German biotechnology company BioNTech. Russia had already given the Sputnik V vaccine.
Up to 50 countries including the US as well as the EU have now approved vaccines for use in emergencies or routinely.
The WHO Emergency Practice List opens the door for countries to speed up their regulatory consent processes for the introduction and administration of the vaccine.
It also enables the UNICEF DA group and the Pan American Health Organization to get the vaccine for distribution to countries in need.
“The WHO and our partners are working day and night to evaluate other vaccines that have reached safety and efficacy levels,” Simao said.
“We are encouraging even more developers to come forward for review and evaluation. It is vitally important that we get the necessary supplies needed to serve every country in the world and stop the pandemic. ”
On December 19, the U.S. approved the Moderna vaccine as the second drug for use against COVID-19.
On Wednesday, the British drug regulator approved the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine for use in the UK, making it the first country to do so.
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