Efforts on to restart AstraZeneca shipments from India: WHO official
The WHO is urgently trying to work with AstraZeneca, Serum Institute of India (SII) as well as the Indian government to restart shipments of COVID-19 vaccines to countries, a senior official at the UN health agency said. WHO is trying to restart the shipments to countries that had to suspend the roll-out of second doses of vaccines amid the disruption in supplies, he said.
Several countries had to suspend roll-out of their second dose
"We have a huge number of countries that have had to suspend roll-out of their second doses of vaccines," Bruce Aylward, Senior Advisor to World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said on Friday. "It's over 30 or 40 countries that could have been targeted for second doses of AstraZeneca vaccines (but they) will not be able to do that," Aylward said.
Interval between doses has been longer than desired: Aylward
"We're urgently trying to work with AstraZeneca itself, SII, and the Indian government to restart those shipments so that we can get those second doses into those populations because we are running to a longer interval than we would have liked," he said. "Several countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, Middle East, and South Asia have been hit hard by this," Aylward added.
We are very, very desperately trying to access doses: Aylward
"Some countries particularly hit hard include those that surround India like Nepal, Sri Lanka, others who suffered a severe wave of disease. We are very, very desperately trying to access doses. We've had quite a substantial problem related to this," he said.
COVAX is about 200 million doses behind target
Earlier this month, Aylward had said about 80 million (8 crore) doses have been distributed through COVAX and the global alliance for equitable vaccine distribution is about 200 million (20 crore) doses behind where it should be due to disruption in COVAX supplies as a result of the COVID-19 second wave in India. "The problem now is supplies are being interrupted," he had said.
