WHO is drawing up plans to help prioritize Covid-19 vaccine distribution upon approval: Report

The World Health Organisation is drawing plans to help decide who gets the Covid-19 vaccine first once it is approved according to reports.

The UN-led health agency is drawing up plans to decide who should get the vaccine first once it is approved, Reuters reported. The priority will be given to frontline workers and medics along with people more vulnerable because of age or other comorbidities and illness. People in high transmission settings such as care homes and prisons will also be prioritized, it said.

The health agency is hoping that hundreds of millions of vaccines get produced this year and 2 billion by the end of 2021.

“I’m hopeful, I’m optimistic. But vaccine development is a complex undertaking, it comes with a lot of uncertainty,” said chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan as quoted by the report. “The good thing is, we have many vaccines and platforms so even if the first one fails, or the second ones fails, we shouldn’t lose hope, we shouldn’t give up,” she added.

Currently, there are over 10 vaccine candidates in human trials. Most recently, researchers at the Imperial College of London began human trials for its new coronavirus vaccine.

The study will provide two doses of the vaccine to 300 healthy volunteers over the coming weeks.

China has five vaccine candidates in clinical trials. Other front runners include AstraZeneca’s vaccine candidate developed in partnership with Oxford University and the vaccine candidate by US’ Moderna.

AstraZeneca had recently inked major deals to supply millions of vaccine doses of its vaccine candidate to countries across the world.

The pharma giant had also begun mass production of its vaccine candidate earlier this month and had inked major deals with the UK, the United States, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and the global vaccine alliance Gavi for 700 million doses as per previous reports.