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The vaccine is produced by AstraZeneca-SKBio (Republic of Korea) and the Serum Institute of India.
Shares of AstraZeneca rose on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on back of the World Health Organization’s emergency use approval of the AstraZeneca and Oxford University’s Covid-19 vaccine.
On Tuesday, Shares of AstraZeneca Pharma India rose 3.79 per cent to close at Rs 3769.10 on BSE.
The WHO’s move widens access to the relatively inexpensive shot in the developing world.
“We now have all the pieces in place for the rapid distribution of vaccines. But we still need to scale up production,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, told a news briefing.
“We continue to call for Covid-19 vaccine developers to submit their dossiers to WHO for review at the same time as they submit them to regulators in high-income countries,” he said.
A WHO statement said it had approved the vaccine as produced by AstraZeneca-SKBio (Republic of Korea) and the Serum Institute of India.
“In the first half of 2021, it is hoped that more than 300 million doses of the vaccine will be made available to 145 countries through COVAX, pending supply and operational challenges,” the British drugmaker said in a separate statement announcing the approval.
The listing by the UN health agency comes days after a WHO panel provided interim recommendations on the vaccine, saying two doses with an interval of around 8 to 12 weeks should be given to all adults, and can be used in countries with the South African variant of the coronavirus as well.
The WHO’s review found that the AstraZeneca vaccine met the “must-have” criteria for safety, and its efficacy benefits outweighed its risks.
The AstraZeneca/Oxford shot has been hailed because it is cheaper and easier to distribute than some rivals, including Pfizer/BioNTech’s, which was listed for emergency use by the WHO late in December.
The WHO established its emergency use listing (EUL) process to help poorer countries without their own regulatory resources quickly approve medicines new diseases like COVID-19, which otherwise could lead to delays.
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