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GENEVA (REUTERS) – AstraZeneca’s pause of an experimental vaccine for coronavirus after a participant’s illness is a “wake-up call” but should not discourage researchers, the chief scientist said Thursday (September 10). of the World Health Organization (WHO). .
“This is a wake-up call to recognize that there are ups and downs in clinical development and that we have to be prepared,” Soumya Swaminathan said in a virtual briefing from Geneva.
“We don’t have to get discouraged. These things happen.”
Governments are desperate for a vaccine to help end the Covid-19 pandemic, which has caused more than 900,000 deaths and global economic turmoil, and the WHO had pointed out AstraZeneca, which is being developed with the University of Oxford, as the most promising.
However, the drugmaker this week suspended late-stage trials on its possible vaccine after a participant in Britain was reported to have symptoms associated with a rare spinal inflammatory disorder.
“It is a race against this virus and it is a race to save lives. It is not a race between companies and it is not a race between countries,” added WHO emergency chief Mike Ryan.
More than 27.95 million people have been infected worldwide, according to a Reuters tally.
WHO epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove said there is a combination of factors helping to reduce death rates in Europe, including early case detection and clinical care.
“We know that early intervention at the first point of entry … will save lives. Furthermore, we are in a better position to prevent the virus from infecting vulnerable populations,” he said, warning, however, that the long-term effects of the disease is still unknown.
WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who on Thursday raised his fundraising request to $ 38 billion for the agency’s ACT Accelerator program to combat Covid-19, declined to comment directly on the reports from that the President of the United States, Donald Trump, had downplayed the dangers of the virus. while criticizing the WHO response.
“What worries me the most is what I’ve been saying all along: lack of solidarity,” Tedros said.
“When we are divided, it is a good opportunity for the virus.”
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