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WHO eyes hundreds of millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses before 2021
GENEVA, June 18, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – The World Health Organization said
Thursday that a few hundred million COVID-19 vaccine doses could be
produced by the end of the year — and be targeted at those most
vulnerable to the virus.
The UN health agency said it was working on that assumption, with a
view to two billion doses by the end of 2021, as pharmaceutical firms
rush to find a vaccine.
WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said researchers were
working on more than 200 vaccine candidates around the world,
including 10 that are in human testing.
“If we’re very lucky, there will be one or two successful
candidates before the end of this year,” she told a virtual press
conference.
She identified three groups most in need of the first wave of vaccine doses.
They are front-line workers with high exposure, such as medics and
police officers; those most vulnerable to the disease, such as the
elderly and diabetics; and people in high-transmission settings, such
as urban slums and care homes.
“You have to start with the most vulnerable and then progressively
vaccinate more people,” Swaminathan said.
“We are working on the assumption that we may have a couple of
hundred million doses at the end of this year, very optimistically,”
she said.
“We’re hoping that in 2021 we will have two billion doses of one,
two or three effective vaccines to be distributed around the world.
But there’s a big ‘if’ there, because we don’t yet have any vaccine
that’s proven.
“But because of all the investments going into this, let’s say we
have two billion doses by the end of 2021 — we should be able to
vaccinate at least these priority populations.”
MORE/MRU/2239hrs
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HEALTH-VIRUS-WHO-DRUGS-RESEARCH –TWO LAST
Pharmaceutical company executives said late last month that one or
several COVID-19 vaccines could begin rolling out before 2021, but
warned that an estimated total of 15 billion doses would be needed to
suppress the virus.
Swaminathan said scientists were analysing 40,000 sequences of the
new coronavirus and while all viruses mutate, this one was doing so
far less than influenza, and had not yet mutated in the key areas that
would alter the severity of disease or the immune response.
– Hydroxychloroquine halt –
On Wednesday, the WHO decided to halt its trials of
hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for hospitalised COVID-19 patients,
after evidence from its own work and others that it had no effect on
reducing the mortality rate.
A decades-old malaria and rheumatoid arthritis drug,
hydroxychloroquine has been at the centre of political and scientific
controversy.
But Swaminathan said ongoing non-WHO trials were trying to
establish whether it might help protect against developing the
disease, either before or after exposure to the virus.
It is being tested on healthcare workers and others with heightened
exposure to the virus in large, randomised trials.
“Hydroxychloroquine does not have — we know for sure now — does
not have an impact” on the mortality rate for hospitalised COVID-19
patients, she said.
“Where there is still a gap is: does it have any role at all in
prevention, or in minimising the severity in early infection?
“For prophylaxis… the last word is not yet out,” she said.
Hydroxychloroquine was one of four drug or drug combinations in the
WHO’s Solidarity Trial: randomised clinical trials — considered the
gold standard for clinical investigation — spanning hospital patients
in several countries.
The trials aim to discover rapidly whether certain drugs slow
disease progression or improve survival chances.
BSS/AFP/MRU/2239hrs