"We continue to call for COVID19 vaccine developers to submit their dossiers to WHO for review at the same time as they submit them to regulators in high-income countries," he said. A WHO statement said it had approved the vaccine as produced by AstraZeneca-SKBio (Republic of Korea) and the Serum Institute of India. The WHO's review found that the Astrazeneca vaccine met the "must-have" criteria for safety, and its efficacy benefits outweighed its risks. Doses of AstraZeneca's vaccine make up the lion's share of doses in the COVAX coronavirus vaccine sharing scheme, with more than 330 million doses of the shot due to begin being rolled out to poorer countries from the end of February. The WHO established its emergency use listing (EUL) process to help poorer countries without their own regulatory resources quickly approve medicines new diseases like COVID-19, which otherwise could lead to delays.

Source: bd News24 February 15, 2021 17:03 UTC