COVID-19 vaccine likely to be ready by December — WHO

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said that a vaccine against coronavirus may be ready by year-end, noting that it would distribute two billion doses of its COVAX global vaccine by the end of 2021.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, said this at the United Nations agency’s executive board meeting on Tuesday, which was to examine the global response to COVID-19 pandemic.

Ghebreyesus called for solidarity and political commitment by all leaders to ensure equal distribution of vaccines when they become available.

The DG in a final remark to the WHO’s executive board, said; “We will need vaccines and there is hope that by the end of this year we may have a vaccine. There is hope.”

This announcement is coming at the background of the world health body’s launch of a real-time review of a COVID-19 vaccine developed by US drugmaker, Pfizer and Germany’s VioNTech and after a similar announcement for AstraZeneca’s vaccine last week.

The WHO-led COVAX global vaccine facility currently has nine experimental vaccines that are under its development, and it aims to distribute two billion doses by the end of 2021.

The two-day WHO executive board meeting, which examined the global response to the pandemic, heard calls from countries including Germany, Britain and Australia for reforms to strengthen the UN agency.

The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, led by former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, and former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, met for the first time last month.

Ghebreyesus said, “We hope to get the real lessons that we can implement and prevent the same thing from happening. But I would like to assure you that WHO is ready to learn from this and change this organisation.”

“During our transformation, we promised this, we promised to keep the change as a constant,” he said, referring to his programme since taking the helm in 2017.

Recall that the WHO had insisted that a vaccine may not be ready until the end of 2020.  (Daily Independent)