Geneva, February 15: The World Health Organization has granted an emergency authorization for the coronavirus vaccine made by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, a move that should allow the company’s partners to send millions of doses to countries around the world such as part of a UN-backed program to tame the pandemic.
In a statement on Monday, the UN health agency said it was authorizing the AstraZeneca vaccines made by the Serum Institute of India and South Korea’s AstraZeneca-SKBio.
The WHO green light for the AstraZeneca vaccine should trigger the delivery of hundreds of millions of doses to countries that have signed up to the UN-backed COVAX effort, which aims to deliver vaccines to the world’s most vulnerable.
Although the WHO does not endorse or regulate vaccines, it evaluates their safety and efficacy for developing countries that do not have a strong regulatory system.
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