(Last Updated on October 9, 2020 by Editor)
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesas, Head of World Health Organisation has said that the vaccine for Covid-19 may be ready before the end of 2020.
He told the WHO executives who gathered to examine the response to the pandemic that has disrupted globally that “there was hope.”
Tedros said “We need vaccines and there is hope that by end of this year we may have a vaccine.”
He was addressing WHO executives who are gathered to asses the response to the global pandemic.
The WHO led Covax global vaccine facility currently has nine experimental vaccines in the pipeline and it is hoped that by end of 2021, two billion doses will have been distributed.
The WHO chief urged countries to work together for the common goal of fighting the disease with the United States, China and Russia not part of the Covax programme so far. Currently 168 countries have joined the programme.
“We need each other, we need solidarity and we need to use all the energy we have to fight the virus,” he added.
While the EU regulator has launched a real time review of the vaccine developed by the US drug maker Pfizer and Germany’ BioNTech in a bid to speed up the process by allowing researchers to submit while studies have not been concluded.
China and WHO are in talks to have the vaccine locally produced in China be assessed by the global body as a step toward making them available for international use.
African nations have also collaborated to curb the pandemic, currently there are 15 clinical vaccine trials with South Africa having 5 in underway and one in Zimbabwe and a few other countries.