The World Health Organisation’s (WHO) decision to validate the first Chinese Covid-19 vaccine represents a “milestone”, the UN agency’s China chief has said, adding that it could spur 15 more Covid jabs in development here to pursue the same path.
The WHO on Friday gave the green light to China’s Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use, approving the vaccine to be rolled out globally.
It is the first vaccine developed by a non-Western country to get the UN health agency’s backing though China has already vaccinated millions of people at home, since last year, and in dozens of other countries with it.
It was also the first time the WHO had given emergency use approval to a Chinese vaccine to be used globally for any infectious disease.
In a statement issued on Saturday, Gauden Galea, WHO’s representative to China called it a “milestone achievement”. “One vaccine has received EUL (emergency use listing) but we know that there are over 15 additional Covid-19 vaccines in advanced development in China. Today’s milestone achievement should spur other manufacturers to pursue this route and add to the global vaccine arsenal,” Galea said.
“The successful EUL application is built on years of training and research by Chinese scientists, and decades of investment, coordinated efforts, and reform on the part of the government, national regulators, and the manufacturers themselves,” Galea said.
Calling it a “highly anticipated WHO EUL listing of the vaccine”, Galea said it shows both at home and abroad that the vaccines are of assured quality, safe for use, and meets WHO’s requirements for efficacy.
A WHO EUL is a pointer to an individual country’s drug regulator that a product is safe as well as effective.
It also allows it to be included in Covax, a global programme to provide vaccines to be channelised for poor countries.
“This (Sinopharm listing) expands the list of Covid-19 vaccines that Covax can buy and gives countries confidence to expedite their own regulatory approval, and to import and administer a vaccine,” WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a briefing on Friday.
Until now, the WHO had only approved the vaccines made by Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and Moderna to be used during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
Galea pointed out the importance of and the need for Covid-19 vaccines reaching poorer countries.
“Around the world, more than a billion vaccine doses have been administered. Among those, 100 million were administered in April – but only 1% (1 million doses) went to low-income countries. The rest – 99 million doses – went to high- and middle-income countries,” he wrote.
In May, 2020, President Xi Jinping had pledged to make Chinese vaccines a global good.
“Covid-19 vaccine development and deployment in China, when available, will be made a global public good, which will be China’s contribution to ensuring vaccine accessibility and affordability in developing countries,” Xi had said at the opening of the 73rd session of the World Health Assembly via video link.
