Vaccines’ supplies likely to be limited in early stages: WHO
Kluge says the promise of coronavirus vaccines is ‘phenomenal;’ UN chief warns of long road ahead ater vaccines; US virus deaths top 3,100 in a single day for the first time
The promise of COVID-19 vaccines is “phenomenal” and “potentially game-changing,” Hans Kluge, the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) regional director for Europe, told a briefing on Thursday.
Speaking from Copenhagen, he said supplies were expected to be very limited in the early stages and countries must decide who gets priority, though the WHO said there is “growing consensus” that first recipients should be older people, medical workers and people with co-morbidities.
Britain approved Pfizer Inc’s COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday, jumping ahead of the rest of the world in the race to begin the most crucial mass inoculation programme in history.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson touted the green light from Britain’s medicine authority as a global win though he recognised the logistical challenges of vaccinating an entire country of 67 million.
US and EU regulators are siting through the same Pfizer vaccine trial data, but have yet to give their approval.
The WHO said on Wednesday it had received data from Pfizer and Biontech on the vaccine and was reviewing it for “possible listing for emergency use,” a benchmark for countries to authorise national use.
WHO’S European office is planning a meeting next week with the health ministers of its 53 member states to look into protecting schools from COVID-19, including alternating classes, regional director Hans Kluge said on Thursday.
“To bring transmission down in schools, you need to bring transmission down in communities,” Catherine Smallwood, the WHO’S Senior Emergency Officer, told a briefing in Copenhagen.
UN Secretary-general Antonio Guterres warned on Thursday that the world could be fighting the atershocks of the COVID-19 pandemic for decades to come even if vaccines are quickly approved.
Opening a special UN summit on the virus, being held virtually as a safety precaution, Guterres hailed the quick scientific progress but cautioned that vaccination was not a panacea for the ills affecting the planet.
“Let’s not fool ourselves. A vaccine cannot undo damage that will stretch across years, even decades to come,” Guterres said.
“Extreme poverty is rising; the threat of famine looms. We face the biggest global recession in eight decades.”
He said COVID-19 — which has killed nearly 1.5 million people globally — had exacerbated other long-term challenges including inequality and climate change.
Earlier, IBM security researchers said they have detected a cyber espionage effort using targeted phishing emails to try to collect vital information on the World Health Organisation’s initiative for distributing COVID-19 vaccine to developing countries.
The researchers said they could not be sure who was behind the campaign, which began in September, or if it was successful. But the precision targeting and careful efforts to leave no tracks bore “the potential hallmarks of nation-state tradecrat,” they said in a blog post on Thursday.
The campaign’s targets, in countries including Germany, Italy, South Korea and Taiwan, are likely associated with the development of the “cold chain” needed to ensure coronavirus vaccines get the nonstop sterile refrigeration they need to be effective for the nearly 3 billion people who live where temperature-controlled storage is insufficient, IBM said.
“Think of it as the bloodline that will be supplying the most vital vaccines globally,” said Claire Zaboeva, an IBM analyst involved in the detection.
Whoever is behind the operation could be motivated by a desire to learn how the vaccines are best able to be shipped and stored — the entire refrigeration process — in order to copy it, said Nick Rossmann, the IBM team’s global threat intelligence lead. Or they might want to be able to undermine a vaccine’s legitimacy or launch a disruptive or destructive atack, he added.
Meanwhile, the US recorded over 3,100 COVID-19 deaths in a single day, obliterating the record set last spring, while the number of Americans hospitalised with the virus has eclipsed 100,000 for the first time and new cases are topping 200,000 a day, according to figures released on Thursday.