Web Report

A vaccine against Covid-19 may be ready by the year-end, the head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Tuesday, without elaborating.

WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called for solidarity and political commitment by all leaders to ensure equal distribution of vaccines when they become available.

It is believed that nine experimental vaccines are under the process at WHO-led COVAX global vaccine facility with the aim to distribute 2 billion doses by the end of next year.

The world needs vaccines and there are hopes that there may be a vaccine by the end of this year, according to Tedros. He said this in his closing remarks to the WHO’s executive board meeting, which examined the global response to the pandemic.

The EU health regulator has launched a real-time review of a Covid-19 vaccine developed by US drugmaker Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech, it said on Tuesday, following a similar announcement for rival AstraZeneca’s jab last week. The announcement by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) could speed up the process of approving a successful vaccine in the bloc.

So far some 168 countries have joined the COVAX facility, but neither China, the United States nor Russia are among them. The Trump administration has said it is relying instead on bilateral deals to secure supplies from vaccine makers.

Political commitment from leaders especially in the equitable distribution of the vaccines is the most important tool especially for the vaccines and other products which are in pipeline, said Tedros.

Solidarity is needed from each other with full energy for the fight with the COVID-19 pendamic, he added.