WHO gives 'green light' to AstraZeneca

Open up hope

According to the AP news agency, in a statement released on February 15,WHOThe agency said it had approved vaccines made by the Serum Institute of India and South Korea's AstraZeneca-SKBio. This is the second time the UN health agency has approved a Covid-19 vaccine after Pfizer-BioNTech's in December. The green light for the AstraZeneca vaccine also means that hundreds of millions of doses will be distributed to countries that have signed up to the UN's COVAX initiative, which aims to get vaccines to the most vulnerable people around the world.

AstraZeneca is the first vaccine to receive emergency approval from the WHO for global distribution through the COVAX initiative. Photo: AP

“Countries that have so far lacked access to vaccines will finally be able to start vaccinating health workers and high-risk populations,” said Dr Mariângela Simão, WHO assistant director-general for access to medicines and health products.

Since its first appearance, Covid-19 has “stormed” everywhere, infecting more than 109 million people worldwide and killing at least 2.4 million of them. But many countries have yet to start vaccination programs, and even rich countries are now facing shortages.VaccineAlthough companies are racing to increase production capacity.

Back to AstraZeneca - this company's vaccine has been licensed in more than 50 countries worldwide, including the UK, India, Argentina and Mexico. Compared to the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, the AstraZeneca vaccine has the "advantage" of being more affordable. Not to mention that the AstraZeneca vaccine is also simpler to preserve, does not require deep cold storage like the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which "makes it difficult" for preservation technology in many developing countries. However, the "common point" of these two vaccines is that each subject needs to be fully vaccinated with 2 doses, several weeks apart, to ensure effectiveness.

Last week, WHO vaccine experts recommended the AstraZeneca vaccine for people aged 18 and over, even in countries where variants of Covid-19 have been detected. However, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has advised that countries with the virus variant first identified in South Africa should “exercise caution” in using the AstraZeneca vaccine and instead prioritize other vaccines.

AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine injection for medical staff in Morocco. Photo: AP

In fact, the AstraZeneca vaccine makes up the bulk of COVAX’s stock, and concerns have recently arisen after preliminary research suggested it may not prevent mild to moderate disease caused by the South African variant. Last week, South Africa scaled back its AstraZeneca vaccination program, opting instead for another unlicensed vaccine from Johnson & Johnson to inoculate its health care workers.

The goal of equitable distribution

COVAX - the United Nations initiative that can be said to have "missed" its goal of launching programs at this pointCorona virus vaccinationin poor countries at the same time as rich ones. In recent weeks, many developing countries have rushed to sign their own deals to buy vaccines, rather than wait for allocations from COVAX.

WHO and its partners, including the GAVI vaccine alliance, have not yet revealed which countries will receive the first doses from the COVAX program. But a preliminary plan shows that many rich countries that have signed separate vaccine deals, such as Canada, South Korea, New Zealand, etc., are also on the list of early recipients of vaccines from COVAX.

Some public health experts say this is “very problematic” and that it is a flaw in COVAX’s calculations, as the initiative allows donor countries to both buy vaccines from the program and sign their own commercial contracts. For example, Anna Marriott, head of health policy for Oxfam International, said: “Canada ordered more than five times the number of doses that would have been needed for their own people and now they are waiting for their share of COVAX that should have gone to poor countries.”

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson holds a vial of the AstraZeneca vaccine during a visit to the Covid-19 Vaccine Production Centre in Orpington, South East London. Photo: AP

Indeed, after pledging more than $400 million to COVAX last year, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau affirmed that the maple leaf country always intended to receive more vaccines through the COVAX mechanism. On this issue, WHO chief scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan said that if rich countries signed up to receive vaccines from COVAX, those requests would not be rejected. "The COVAX mechanism will not punish countries," she said in early February.

However, experts like Marriott still believe that rich countries that are planning to receive vaccine doses from COVAX should reconsider, as previous calls were made to support the initiative's goal of ensuring equitable access to vaccines for all countries in the world, regardless of rich or poor, rich or poor... "Rich countries that already have their own vaccine supply should not deprive countries in dire straits of doses that should be reserved for countries in dire need," Marriott argued.