WHO does not expect mass Covid-19 vaccinations before mid-2021

(Sharecast News) - The World Health Organization said on Friday it does not expect widespread vaccinations for Covid-19 until at least mid-2021.

A spokeswoman for the organization, Margaret Harris, said that it was of utmost importance to carry out enough safety and effectivity checks on the treatments before distributing them in mass.

She added that none of the vaccines currently in development had demonstrated a "clear signal" of efficacy at the level of at least 50%.

"We are really not expecting to see widespread vaccination until the middle of next year", Harris told a UN briefing in Geneva.

"This phase 3 must take longer because we need to see how truly protective the vaccine is and we also need to see how safe it is", she added. Phase 3 is a stage of clinical trials where the potential vaccine is tested on people.

The WHO is currently leading a global plan called COVAX in which over 150 countries have allied to work together to find an effective way to combat the virus that has halted the world.

Harris added that the aim of COVAX is for everyone in need of the vaccine to have access to it once it has been approved and is ready for distribution.

Also on Friday, according to a peer-reviewed study published in The Lancet, Russia's "Sputnik-V" vaccine had succeeded in producing an antibody and T-cell response in all the participants in phase 1 and 2 clinical trials.

All 76 patients responded positively to the treatment and no dangerous side-effects were registered.

Recruitment of 40,000 volunteers for a phase three clinical trial to assess efficacy was already under way.