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GENEVA: The World Health Organization expects to make decisions on whether to approve the emergency use of COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca in the coming weeks, its chief scientist said on Friday (December 11).
Soumya Swaminathan said the world health body could decide on the Pfizer vaccine candidate in the next “two weeks,” then said it could also review the Moderna and AstraZeneca candidates in a few weeks.
WHO approval could allow the deployment of a vaccine in some countries where national medical regulators have not yet been able to evaluate it. Swaminathan said that at least 10 companies had expressed interest or submitted an emergency approval request for vaccine candidates.
Pfizer’s vaccine has already received emergency approval in Britain and Canada, and could receive approval from the United States in a few days. The first British recipients were vaccinated this week.
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WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said nearly 1 billion doses of vaccines had been secured for the COVAX program to provide injections to poor and middle-income countries, with 189 countries participating.
WHO officials described the arrival of vaccines as an important advance, but repeatedly stressed that it would be a long time before vaccines could be rolled out around the world.
Meanwhile, the epidemic is worsening in much of the world and countries must continue to take other measures to curb the infection, such as testing, tracing, isolating cases and social distancing. Tedros noted that coronavirus deaths had risen 60 percent in the past six weeks.
Swaminathan said the vaccine supply is likely to be limited during the first half of 2021.
WHO emergency director Mike Ryan said: “Vaccines represent an important light at the end of the tunnel, but we have a lot of work to do to make that a reality.”
Bruce Aylward, a senior advisor to Tedros, added: “It’s a long tunnel, so you understand directly. It’s a long tunnel.”
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