China is looking towards WHO to assess its locally developed and tested COVID-19 vaccine for the global market. China has given its vaccine technology to Bangladesh and looking forward to its production at the international level. However, hundreds of thousands of essential workers and other groups considered at high risk in China have been given locally-developed vaccines even as clinical trials had not been fully completed, raising safety concerns among experts.
The WHO’s emergency use listing procedure allows unlicensed vaccines and treatments to be assessed to expedite their availability in public health emergencies. This helps in assisting the WHO’s member states and UN procurement agencies to determine the acceptability of the vaccines. “Potentially through this emergency use, listing the quality and safety of these vaccines and efficacy could be assessed. ..and then this could be made available for our licensees,” Escalante said.
Before China, Russia has already developed its local vaccine named Sputnik V. While Oxford University’s vaccine is at the trial stage, the vaccine trials are being conducted across the globe. Thousands of volunteers have been vaccinated by this vaccine.
COVID-19 has affected millions of people and has taken many lives. The whole world is looking for a good vaccine for this pandemic therefore, many organizations are in a hurry for its production. This loss of patience can be dangerous because this can violate the rules and guidelines of testing and developing a vaccine. The vaccine will require large number of volunteers to be tested on, to ensure that there are no side-effects.
