World Health Organization to decide whether to approve Chinese Covid-19 vaccines for global use
- Giving the products from Sinovac and Sinopharm the green light could boost supplies to the world’s poorest countries
- The manufacturers have yet to publish the full data from their final trials but now the vaccines will be tested against a global standard
China’s pharmaceutical companies have faced intense scrutiny for not releasing detailed data about how well the vaccines work before they came into use, but now the World Health Organization will decide whether they can be licensed for emergency use - a globally recognised stamp of approval.
A decision to authorise the products from Sinopharm and Sinovac Biotech would have far-reaching implications because shortages have crippled a WHO global vaccine distribution programme, prompting some countries to turn to China.
Authorisation will also be necessary to supply the WHO’s Covax programme, which the world’s poorest countries are relying on for supplies.
“Scarcity of supply is driving vaccine nationalism and vaccine diplomacy so [the WHO and its partners] are working on several options for accelerating production and supply,” WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said earlier this month.
He said the effort to tackle the problem included “expediting the review of more vaccines, including from Sinopharm and Sinovac”.