Rabat – The World Health Organization (WHO) approved on February 15 two variants of the AstraZeneca/Oxford COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use. The inclusion of the Emergency Use Listing (EUL) will allow for the vaccines to be rolled out globally through the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) program.
COVAX is an initiative co-led by Gavi, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and the WHO. It aims to accelerate the development and manufacture of COVID-19 vaccines while also ensuring a fair and equitable distribution across the world.
Under COVAX, the WHO has pledged to deliver nearly two million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccines to Morocco. According to WHO, the EUL “assesses the quality, safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines,” and being listed is a prerequisite for COVAX vaccine distribution.
Globally, the WHO aims to deliver 336 million doses by June, and up to two billion by the end of the year.
Read also: COVID-19: Morocco to Receive 500,000 Sinopharm Vaccines Tomorrow
“Countries with no access to vaccines to date will finally be able to start vaccinating their health workers and populations at risk,” said Dr. Mariangela Simao, WHO Assistant-Director General for Access to Medicines and Health Products.
While nearly 172 million vaccines have so far been administered worldwide, observers point out that most of them have gone to high-income countries.
Due to the vaccine hoarding practiced by high-income nations, many governments in Africa have been struggling to secure vaccines to begin their national vaccination campaigns.
Despite such notable obstacles Morocco launched its vaccination campaign on January 28, after receiving its first shipments of vaccines directly ordered from China’s Sinopharm and AstraZeneca’s Indian plant.
Morocco has received only seven million of the 60 million doses ordered. As a result, the first phase of Morocco’s vaccine rollout has been targeted at frontline workers (teachers, health workers, security services, among others) aged 40 and above.
So far Morocco’s national vaccination campaign has inoculated over 1.7 million people.
