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News > U.S.

WHO Authorizes Universal Access for Pfizer/BioNTech Vaccine

  • A health worker from the UCLA health system getting vaccinated with the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in Los Angeles, California, USA.

    A health worker from the UCLA health system getting vaccinated with the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in Los Angeles, California, USA. | Photo: Twitter/@Forbes

Published 1 January 2021
Opinion

The World Health Organization (WHO) gave the green light for the emergency universal access use of the COVID-19 vaccine from the American pharmaceutical company Pfizer and the German company BioNTech, says a statement from that health entity today.

We have given the emergency approval in favor of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which will facilitate its use in countries that have not yet validated it.

This is a very positive step to guarantee universal access to COVID-19 vaccines, said Mariangela Simao, director in charge of access to medicines at the World Health Organization (WHO).

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For the specialist, an even greater effort is needed to ensure that sufficient doses of vaccines are available to meet the needs of priority populations around the world.

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has been administered for several weeks in the United Kingdom, the European Union, the United States and Switzerland, among other countries.

The United Nations entity further explained that this urgent validation will allow the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) to purchase the vaccine for countries in need.

Produced by Pfizer and the German company BioNTech, the injectable proved to be 95 percent effective in Phase III of the clinical trials, but one of the main challenges is transportation and storage at temperatures of 70 degrees below zero, although the companies designed a logistics chain to meet this requirement.

Following this approval, WHO also committed to help countries that do not have the infrastructure to store and distribute the stock of these vaccines at the required temperature.

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