WHO approves Astrazeneca vaccine

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday listed Astrazeneca and Oxford University’s Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use, widening access to the relatively inexpensive shot in the developing world. “We now have all the pieces in place for the rapid distribution of vaccines. But we still need to scale up production,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, told a news briefing. “We continue to call for Covid-19 vaccine developers to submit their dossiers to WHO for review,” he said. A WHO statement said it had approved the vaccine as produced by Astrazeneca-skbio (Republic of Korea) and the Serum Institute of India. The WHO’S review found that the Astrazeneca vaccine met the “musthave” criteria for safety, and its efficacy benefits outweighed its risks.

GENEVA/JERUSALEM: The World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday listed Astrazeneca and Oxford University’s Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use, widening access to the relatively inexpensive shot in the developing world.

A WHO statement said it had approved the vaccine as produced by Astrazeneca-skbio (Republic of Korea) and the Serum Institute of India.

“We now have all the pieces in place for the rapid distribution of vaccines. But we still need to scale up production,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general.

The listing comes days after a WHO panel provided interim recommendations on the vaccine, saying two doses with an interval of around 8 to 12 weeks must be given to all adults, and can be used in countries with the South African variant of the coronavirus as well.the Astrazeneca/oxford shot has been hailed because it is cheaper and easier to distribute than some rivals.

Clalit, Israel’s largest healthcare provider, said on Sunday that a study of more than half a million fully vaccinated Israelis indicated the Pfizer/biontech jab gave 94% protection against Covid-19. It compared infections in 600,000 Israelis who had received the vaccine compared to 600,000 who were not immunised and found a 94% drop in symptomatic infections and a 92% drop in serious cases of the disease among those vaccinated. It said “the efficacy of the vaccine is preserved in every age group,” particularly a week after the second dose of the vaccine.

Israel launched its Covid-19 vaccine campaign in December. Since then, over a quarter of the population — 2.5 million people — have received two doses of the Pfizer/biontech vaccine.

The WHO said on Monday that only around 1% of the wider Middle East region’s population had received a first coronavirus vaccine shot, except for Israel.

In New Zealand, a coronavirus outbreak that sent its biggest city Auckland into a snap lockdown over the weekend was found to be from the more transmissible UK variant, health officials confirmed on Monday. This is the first instance of the UK strain in the country. The source of the cases remains unknown.

Britain on Monday began the 10-day quarantining in hotels for travellers arriving from 33 highrisk countries as the government tries to prevent new variants of the coronavirus derailing its fast-moving vaccination drive.