Geneva
The World Health Organization’s (WHO) top scientist said on Monday that Covid-19 vaccines will probably be available in December 2020 or early 2021 for submission to regulators for approval.
Asked by Anadolu Agency about a possible timeline for vaccines to combat the pandemic, Dr. Soumya Swaminathan said: “It’s very encouraging to see the progress in the clinical trials that are happening all around the world.”
He added: “As you know, we have about 40 vaccine candidates now in some stage of clinical trials, and 10 of them are in the Phase 3 trials, which are the late-stage clinical trials, which will tell us about both the efficacy and the safety.”He said that the earliest date for a vaccine to come onto the market to submit to regulators “is starting from December of 2020, into the early part of 2021.”
Dr. Mariangela Simao, the WHO’s head of access to medicines and health products, said that the vaccine developed would have to be licensed in the country where the trial took place.
“And we also have the manufacturing capacity it will need to be available to be used at the country level. So many, many steps need to be taken after its Phase 3 trial actually ends,” said Simao, adding that the WHO is working very closely with national regulatory authorities.
Earlier, WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus spoke out against the “concept of reaching so-called herd immunity by letting the virus spread.”
He said herd immunity is a concept used for vaccination in which a population can be protected from a particular virus if an immunization threshold is reached.–Anadolu Agency
