Emergency nod frees up shots for millions
The World Health Organisation has granted an emergency authorisation to AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine, a move that should allow the United Nations agency’s partners to ship millions of doses to countries worldwide as part of the UN-backed Covax programme to tame the pandemic.
The WHO’s green light for the AstraZeneca vaccine is only the second one the UN health agency has issued, after approving the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in December.
The announcement should trigger the delivery of hundreds of millions of doses to countries that have signed up for Covax, which aims to deliver vaccines to the world’s most vulnerable people.
‘‘Countries with no access to vaccines to date will finally be able to start vaccinating their health workers and populations at risk,’’ said Dr Mariangela Simao, the WHO’s Assistant-Director General for Access to Medicines and Health Products.
The coronavirus pandemic has infected about 109 million people worldwide and killed at least 2.4 million. But many countries have not yet started vaccination programmes, and even rich nations are facing shortages of vaccine doses as manufacturers struggle to ramp up production.
The AstraZeneca vaccine has already been authorised in more than 50 countries. It is cheaper and easier to handle than the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which needs deep cold storage that is not widespread in many developing nations. Both vaccines require two shots per person, given weeks apart.
Last week, the WHO’s vaccine experts recommended the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine for people over age 18, including in countries that have detected variants of Covid-19.
However, this was contrary to the recommendation from the African Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, which said countries that had identified a virus variant first seen in South Africa should be ‘‘cautious’’ in their use of the AstraZeneca vaccine, suggesting that other shots be prioritised instead.
The AstraZeneca vaccine forms the bulk of Covax’s current stockpile, and concerns were recently raised after an early study suggested it might not prevent mild and moderate disease caused by the variant first seen South Africa. Last week, South Africa scaled back its planned rollout of the AstraZeneca vaccine, opting instead to use an unlicensed shot from Johnson & Johnson for its health care workers.
Covax has already missed its own goal of beginning vaccinations in poor countries at the same time that shots were rolled out in rich countries. Numerous developing countries have rushed in recent weeks to sign their own private deals to buy vaccines, unwilling to wait.