WHO in talks with Pfizer, Moderna on Covid-19 vaccine access

The World Health Organization said Tuesday it is in discussions with Pfizer and Moderna about possibly including their high-tech coronavirus vaccines among early jabs for poor countries at affordable prices.

The WHO-backed Covax facility, created to ensure equitable access to Covid-19 vaccines around the world as they become available, is aiming to provide some two billion doses by the end of next year.

It has already secured hundreds of millions of doses of vaccine candidates being developed by AstraZeneca, Novavax, and Sanofi-GSK.

WHO senior advisor Bruce Aylward said the organization was looking at a range of other jabs, as well as the current frontrunners.

He said WHO was “in conversations” with Pfizer and Moderna about whether their products could be part of “early roll-out of vaccines”.

But, he stressed, “we also need to make sure that they are at prices that are appropriate for the populations we are trying to serve and the countries we are trying to help.”

US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has, along with German BioNTech, created the first coronavirus jab to receive regulatory approval in a number of Western countries. Vaccination campaigns have already begun in Britain and the United States.

The Moderna vaccine is expected to quickly receive approvals as well.

This article has been posted by a News Hour Correspondent. For queries, please contact through [email protected]
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