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(Adds background, details, quotes from WHO officials)
GENEVA, Dec 11 (Reuters) - The World Health Organization
expects to make decisions on whether to give emergency use
approval to COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer, Moderna and
AstraZeneca in the coming weeks, its chief scientist said on
Friday.
Soumya Swaminathan said the global health body could decide
on Pfizer's vaccine candidate in the next "couple of
weeks", and later said it could also review Moderna's
and AstraZeneca's candidates in a few weeks.
WHO approval could allow a vaccine to be deployed in some
countries where national medical regulators have not yet been
able to evaluate it. Swaminathan said at least 10 companies had
expressed an interest in or submitted a request for emergency
approval for vaccine candidates.
Pfizer's vaccine has already received emergency approval in
Britain and Canada, and could receive U.S. approval within days.
The first British recipients were vaccinated this week.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said nearly
a billion doses of vaccines had been secured for the COVAX
programme to provide shots for poor- and middle-income
countries, with 189 countries participating.
WHO officials described the arrival of vaccines as a major
development, but stressed repeatedly that it would take a long
time before vaccines could be rolled out worldwide.
In the meantime, the epidemic is worsening in much of the
world, and countries must continue to take other steps to curb
infection, such as testing, tracing, isolating cases and social
distancing. Tedros noted that coronavirus deaths had increased
60% in the last six weeks.
Swaminathan said the supply of vaccines was likely to be
limited for the first half of 2021.
WHO emergencies director Mike Ryan said: "Vaccines represent
a major, major light at the end of the tunnel, but we have much
work to do to make that a reality."
Bruce Aylward, a senior adviser to Tedros, added: "It is a
long tunnel, to give it to you straight. It is a long tunnel."
(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay, Emma Farge and Peter Graff
Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Catherine Evans, Andrew
Heavens and Tom Brown)
