A senior World Health Organization official said Monday it was “premature” and “unrealistic” to think the pandemic might be stopped by the end of the year, but that the recent arrival of effective vaccines could at least help dramatically reduce hospitalizations and death.
Speaking at the daily press briefing, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, said, "Today, WHO gave emergency use listing to two versions of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, giving the green light for these vaccines to be rolled out globally through COVAX."
The Wuhan Institute of Virology has collected extensive virus samples, leading to allegations that it may have caused the original outbreak by leaking the virus into the surrounding community.
On Friday, the WHO chief had warned against coronavirus vaccine hoarding, saying it could lead to slow global economic recovery and most importantly a never-ending pandemic.
According to an official statement by the UN, the WHO has participated in dry-run simulations and provided feedback on the management of vaccines, registration of beneficiaries, as well as reporting on vaccination coverage and adverse events following immunisation.
"More than 39 million doses of vaccine have now been administered in at least 49 higher-income countries. Just 25 doses have been given in one lowest-income country. Not 25 million; not 25 thousand; just 25," the WHO chief has said.
The 10-member team sent to Wuhan by the World Health Organization was approved by President Xi Jinping’s government after months of diplomatic wrangling that prompted an unusual public complaint by the head of the WHO.
The World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic on March 11. To date, more than 92.1 million people have been infected with the coronavirus worldwide, with over 1.97 million fatalities, according to Johns Hopkins University.
In a rare instance of criticism from the global body, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who is often accused of being pro-China, in a media conference in Geneva on Tuesday had expressed disappointment over China not finalising the necessary permissions for the experts team's arrival.
Back in May 2020, the WHO had agreed to hold an inquiry into the global response to the pandemic after more than 100 countries signed a resolution calling for an independent probe.
The approved vaccines will be first offered to one crore healthcare workers, along with two crore frontline and essential workers and 27 crore elderly, mostly above the age of 50 years with co-morbidities.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) has said preliminary modelling results communicated by the UK on December 19 suggest the variant is 70 per cent more transmissible than previously circulating variants.
Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine: Every country that has a drug regulatory agency will have to issue its own approval for any COVID-19 vaccine, but countries with weak systems usually rely on WHO to vet the shots.
The overall number of global coronavirus cases has topped 61.5 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 1.44 million, according to the Johns Hopkins University.
The WHO chief's remarks came after drugmaker AstraZeneca said on Monday that its COVID-19 vaccine, developed with Oxford University, was up to 90 per cent effective, making it the third major drug company after Pfizer and Moderna to have reported late-stage data for a potential COVID-19 vaccine.
Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Sunday announced his self-isolation after coming into contact with a person infected with the coronavirus.
The World Health Organization (WHO) Emergency Committee on COVID-19 has unanimously agreed that the ongoing global pandemic still constituted a public health emergency of international concern.
The World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has called for solidarity in the rollout of future coronavirus vaccines.
Pakistan could be the next country on the journey to a polio-free world, the World Health Organisation has said. Pakistan is one of the three countries, along with Afghanistan and Nigeria, where polio is still endemic.
The head of emergencies at the World Health Organization on Monday said, its “best estimates” indicate that roughly 1 in 10 people worldwide may have been infected by the coronavirus — more than 20 times the number of confirmed cases — and warned of a difficult period ahead.
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