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GENEVA – World Health Organization (WHO) director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Tuesday that there is hope that a Covid-19 vaccine will be viable by the end of the year. The statement, which did not detail which of the large-scale immunizations tested in the world could be safe and effective in blocking coronavirus infection, was made at the end of an executive panel of the entity that lasted two days.
To the participants, Tedros mentioned the importance of controlling the pandemic through immunization:
– We need vaccinations. And there is hope that we will have one later this year. There is hope.
The WHO Director-General called on world leaders to make global immunization feasible.
– Especially in the case of vaccines and other products that are under development, the most important tool is the political commitment of our world leaders, mainly for the equitable distribution of vaccines. We need each other, solidarity. We will use all the energy we have to fight the coronavirus – said Tedros.
Nine experimental vaccines are part of the Covax initiative, a coalition coordinated by the WHO that aims to accelerate the development of immunizing candidates against Covid-19 and ensure their universalization. The alliance plans to distribute 2 billion doses by the end of next year.
At the end of September, Brazil formalized its accession to Covax. In total, vaccines from four laboratories are extensively tested in the country: AstraZeneca (in partnership with Oxford University, UK), Sinovac Biotech (China), Pfizer / BioNTech (US / Germany) and Johnson & Johnson (USA / Belgium).
Challenges
Tedros’s statement, however, makes no direct reference to the distribution of a vaccine until December 2020. The organization has been consistently warning about the logistical challenges of a global vaccination strategy. At the end of July, the director of health emergencies of the WHO, Mike Ryan, ruled out that the immunization process should begin before January.
In late September, the organization’s chief scientist, Soumya Swaminathan, declared that even a vaccine approved against Sars-CoV-2 in early 2021 would only reach the world in 2022. Swaminathan considered that people belonging to the so-called groups Risk should be prioritized at first.
To date, 168 countries have joined the Covax initiative. The governments of powers like China, the United States and Russia, however, chose to stay on the sidelines. All three countries have developed promising formulas, but are often accused of politicizing the pandemic.
