AstraZeneca has been approved by the WHO -

Andrew Medichini / AP / SIPA

The World Health Organization announced on Monday that it had granted emergency approval for AstraZeneca's anti-Covid vaccine, which paves the way for the distribution of hundreds of millions of doses to underprivileged countries hitherto deprived of immunization.

This procedure helps countries that do not have the means to determine for themselves the efficacy and safety of a drug to have faster access to therapies, and allows the Covax device, set up to ensure access equitable to the vaccine, to begin distribution.

The vast majority of vaccines available

AstraZeneca's vaccine represents the vast majority of the 337.2 million doses of vaccine that the Covax device, led by the World Health Organization (WHO), the Vaccine Alliance (Gavi) and the Coalition for innovations in epidemic preparedness (Cepi), intends to distribute in the first half of this year.

These doses for Covax are manufactured in South Korea and India by the Serum Institute of India (SII).

The approval concerns these two versions, according to a press release from the UN agency.

Last week, the vaccine was already recommended by the WHO vaccine expert committee for anyone 18 years of age or older, including in countries where more contagious variants are circulating.

A vaccine that does the job perfectly

However, the vaccine developed by the University of Oxford (United Kingdom) and the pharmaceutical giant has experienced setbacks and doubts about its effectiveness for those over 65 and in the face of the variant of the virus that gives Covid-19, initially detected in South Africa but now present in many countries.

For the WHO and its experts, this vaccine does the job perfectly for the priority of the moment: to limit the severity and mortality of a pandemic that has claimed the lives of 2.4 million people in just over one year.

It is already widely used across the world, starting with the United Kingdom since December, but also in the European Union.

The vaccine is easier to access and use

Although considered less effective than the vaccines from Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna, which for the first time rely on the use of messenger RNA, it has the enormous advantage of being able to be stored with conventional refrigeration means.

A strong argument especially in the 92 disadvantaged countries and territories, which will receive it free of charge through Covax and which often do not have the ultra-cold chain capacities required by the other two vaccines.

Its so-called "viral vector" technology, which uses a harmless virus like a "Trojan horse" to prevent the SARS-CoV-2 virus from spreading through the body, also makes it significantly cheaper, at around 2.50 euros per dose, with variations according to local production costs.

AstraZeneca has also made a commitment not to profit from this product.

Like other manufacturers, the British pharmaceutical giant finds itself struggling to meet demand and is looking for partners to produce more.

Vaccination reserved for rich countries for the moment

Even if the number of vaccinations in the world now exceeds that of recorded cases of infection, the director general of the WHO Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus insists that three quarters of these vaccinations were made in only 10 countries which represent 60% of the GDP global.

In other words, while the rich had been vaccinating since December, the poor had to be patient.

"At least 130 countries, which have 2.5 billion people, have not injected a single vaccine," he accused last week.

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