Sinopharm’s Covid-19 vaccine. – SOPA Images / SIPA
The World Health Organization on Friday gave its emergency approval for the anti-Covid-19 vaccine from the Chinese pharmaceutical group Sinopharm, manufactured in Beijing,
announced the director general of the organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, at a press conference.
The WHO vaccine expert committee recommended this vaccine (the first Chinese vaccine to receive the green light from the United Nations health agency) for people 18 years of age and older.
Two more Chinese vaccines have sought approval
Discussions for the approval of a second Chinese vaccine, Sinovac, are underway. A second vaccine from Sinopharm, manufactured in Wuhan (the epicenter of the pandemic), has also applied for approval by the WHO.
The organization has already approved the Moderna vaccine, that of Pfizer-BioNTech, the two AstraZeneca serums manufactured in India and South Korea (WHO counts this for two approvals even if the product is identical Editor’s note) and that of Johnson & Johnson, called Janssen. This procedure helps countries that do not have the means to determine on their own the efficacy and safety of a drug to have faster access to therapies and will allow the Covax system, set up by the WHO with partners to distribute Covid vaccines in particular in disadvantaged nations, to be able to consider having additional vaccines.