The Assistant-Director General for Access to Medicines and Health Products of the world body, Dr Mariangela Simao called it a “very positive step towards ensuring global access to COVID-19 vaccines.”
“But I want to emphasise the need for an even greater global effort to achieve enough vaccine supply to meet the needs of priority populations everywhere,”she added.
As part of the Emergency Use Listing assessment, WHO had convened regulatory experts from around the world to review the data on the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine’s safety, efficacy and quality. They found that the vaccine “met the must-have criteria for safety and efficacy set out by WHO.”
The announcement also enables UNICEF and the Pan-American Health Organization to procure the vaccine for distribution to countries in need.
Earlier, the United Kingdom had approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for rollout. The vaccine was found to provide strong protection against COVID-19 within about 10 days of the first dose,…