WHO: Vaccine progress positive, but 'long way to go'

WHO: Vaccine progress positive, but
# 20 July 2020 21:22 (UTC +04:00)

The World Health Organization (WHO) has welcomed today's progress towards a vaccine but says work still needs to be done to combat the spread of Covid-19, APA reports citing BBC.

At a briefing in Geneva, Dr Mike Ryan, director of the WHO emergencies programme, congratulated the scientists behind the Oxford vaccine, saying: "This is a positive result but again there is a long way to go."

He added that now, "real world" trials must be done on a larger scale. There are 23 potential vaccines in development thus far.

"But it is good to see more data and more products moving into this very important phase of vaccine discovery."

WHO chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also emphasised that any successful vaccines must be accessible to all.

He said many countries are seeing the advantages of making the vaccine "a global public good", but some are "going the reverse direction".

"When there is no consensus, it could be actually owned by those who have money and those who cannot afford it may not have access to the vaccines."

The director-general also said that while vaccine research continues, "we have to save lives now".

"We must continue to accelerate vaccine research while doing more with the tools we have at hand."

#
#

THE OPERATION IS BEING PERFORMED