WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged wealthy nations to share vaccine doses with COVAX, saying the goal of equitable distribution was “in jeopardy”.
“So far 210 million doses of vaccine have been administered globally but half of those are in just two countries,” Tedros said in Geneva. “More than 200 countries are yet to administer a single dose.”
COVAX is co-led by the WHO, the GAVI vaccines alliance, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and UNICEF.
It was launched in June 2020 to try to prevent poorer countries being pushed to the back of the queue for COVID-19 vaccines as wealthier nations bought up billions of doses for their populations.
The Philippine Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted CoronaVac, the Covid-19 vaccine of China's Sinovac, an emergency use authorization (EUA) today.
But the FDA said that CoronaVac's efficacy rate is only 50.4 percent.
FDA said it was not fit for health workers who are always exposed to Covid-19 patients nor for senior citizens who have comorbidities.
FDA also said that the Sinovac vaccine should only be administered to clinically healthy individuals aged 18 to 59 years old.
