ZURICH/GENEVA (SWITZERLAND) – The World Health Organization’s chief scientist said on Wednesday that the safety of a prospective COVID-19 vaccine comes “first and foremost”. The trial of a potential candidate from AstraZeneca was stopped due to worries with regard to its side effects.
Dr Soumya Swaminathan said in a social media event, “Just because we talk about speed…it doesn’t mean we start compromising or cutting corners on what would normally be assessed.”
“The process still has to follow through rules of the game. For drugs and vaccines which are given to people, you have to test their safety, first and foremost,” she said.
WHO officials did not immediately respond directly about stopping the trials of AstraZeneca’s candidate.
WHO has described the vaccine, AstraZeneca developed with the University of Oxford, as probably the world’s leading candidate.
The WHO is working towards gathering support for the ACT Accelerator, through which it aims to fairly distribute vaccines, treatments and diagnostics for the coronavirus.
However, some countries have agreed upon their own vaccine deals, including the United States which is not joining the WHO effort.
Swaminathan said volume buying and possible tiered pricing put forth by some manufacturers could leading to making a vaccine more affordable.
She said, “You need to come together. Essentially, if every country and every organisation tries to do this on their own, it’s going to be long and hard and difficult. This is the first time that the world will need vaccines in the billions of doses.”