UN health agency says a list of emergency uses ‘opens the door’ for countries to speed up their approval processes.
The World Health Organization has listed Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use, a critical step that, according to the United Nations Health Agency, should make the vaccine more readily available in developing countries.
In a statement on Thursday, the WHO said that the ratification of the vaccine – the first since the start of the pandemic – “opens the door for countries to speed up their own approval processes for the import and administration of the vaccine”.
It will also allow groups, such as UNICEF and the Pan-American Health Organization, to “obtain the vaccine for distribution to countries in need”, the WHO said.
“This is a very positive step in ensuring global access to COVID-19 vaccines,” said Dr. Mariangela Simao, WHO Assistant Director-General for Access to Medicines and Health Products, said in the statement.
“But I want to emphasize the need for an even greater effort to get enough vaccine worldwide to meet the needs of populations everywhere.”
Boxes of Pfizer-BioNtech COVID-19 vaccines arrive on December 26, 2020 at an unknown location in Nicosia, Cyprus. [Stavros Ioannides/PIO/Handout via Reuters]
The WHO said that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine meets its safety requirements and that its benefits outweigh the potential risks.
The vaccine, which is to be kept at ultra-low temperatures, is already being administered in several countries, including the United States, Canada, Qatar, Bahrain and Mexico.
Human rights groups have expressed concern about richer countries “stockpiling” vaccines at the expense of developing countries.
A recent report by Amnesty International found that all of Moderna Inc’s COVID-19 vaccines and 96 percent of Pfizer-BioNtech’s doses are protected by rich countries, including Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
“Many countries have seen the vaccine, understandably, as their way out of this crisis and it has been a race,” Stephen Cockburn, head of economic and social justice at Amnesty, told Al Jazeera this month.
“Instead of working together, we have a ‘my first’ attitude in many countries, and there has been a lack of multilateralism and global coordination in the world.”
Healthcare workers inject Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at Nitra University Hospital, Slovakia, 26 December 2020 [Radovan Stoklasa/Reuters]
The director of Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, John Nkengasong, also warned that Africa could only see vaccines after the second quarter of 2021.
Nkengasong called it a ‘moral issue’ and urged the UN to convene a special session to discuss the ethical and equitable distribution of vaccines to address’ this North-South distrust of vaccines, which is a general benefit is’, to be avoided.
The UN Health Agency, with the GAVI Vaccine Alliance and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), is spearheading a global effort called COVAX to secure and distribute vaccines to poorer countries, to ensure that shots are fired. not just going to affluent countries.
The WHO-backed COVAX alliance has agreements for nearly two billion doses, with the first deliveries in early 2021.
The alliance has entered into discussions with Pfizer and BioNTech to secure vaccine.