Vaccine approved for emergency use

GENEVA: The World Health Organisation (WHO) yesterday listed AstraZeneca and Oxford University’s Covid19 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,’’ WHO directorgeneral Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

‘‘We continue to call for Covid19 vaccine developers to submit their dossiers to WHO for review at the same time as they submit them to regulators in highincome countries,’’ he said.

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

‘‘In the first half of 2021, it is hoped that more than 300 million doses of the vaccine will be made available to 145 countries through Covax, pending supply and operational challenges,’’ the British drugmaker said in a separate statement announcing the approval.

The listing by the UN health agency comes days after a WHO panel provided interim recommendations on the vaccine, saying two doses with an interval of about 8 to 12 weeks should be given to all adults, and could be used in countries with the South African variant of the coronavirus as well.

The WHO’s review found the Astrazeneca vaccine met the ‘‘musthave’’ criteria for safety, and its efficacy benefits outweighed its risks.

µ The Therapeutic Goods

Administration yesterday approved the AstraZeneca vaccine for use in Australia.

The regulator has approved the jab for people aged 18 and over but says the decision to immunise those aged over 65 should be made on a casebycase basis.

It said there was not enough data to determine the efficacy for people over 65.

µ British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said yesterday world powers should clinch a global treaty on pandemics to ensure proper transparency after the coronavirus outbreak which originated in China.

Asked by Reuters who he held responsible for what Britain says is a lack of transparency on the origins of the pandemic, Johnson said: ‘‘I think its fairly obvious that most of the evidence seems to point to the disease having originated in Wuhan’’.

‘‘I think what the world needs to see is a general agreement on how we track data surrounding zoonotic pandemics.

‘‘We want a general agreement on transparency. I think one of the attractive ideas we have seen in the last few months is a proposal for a global treaty on pandemics.’’ — Reuters/AAP