A prominent rights group on Monday has called on leading members of the international community, including the United States and the United Kingdom, to give low- and middle-income countries priority access to vaccines against COVID-19, including the candidate vaccine produced by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford which has shown efficacy of up to 90 percent in trials
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 23rd November, 2020) A prominent rights group on Monday has called on leading members of the international community, including the United States and the United Kingdom, to give low- and middle-income countries priority access to vaccines against COVID-19, including the candidate vaccine produced by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford which has shown efficacy of up to 90 percent in trials.
Earlier in the day, AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford said that its candidate vaccine against COVID-19 had shown an average of 70 percent efficacy in trials, although one dosing regimen had shown to be 90 percent effective. The EU, US, China, Japan, and the UK combined have more than 1 billion doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine on order, and Amnesty International's head of economic and social justice, Steve Cockburn, said that other countries must now be given priority.
"Governments and companies need to start prioritising access for the rest of the world, sharing technologies widely and agreeing deals to ensure that stocks are available to protect everyone who needs it, no matter where they live," Cockburn said in a press release.
While offering support for a deal agreed by AstraZeneca and the Serum Institute of India to produce 1 billion doses of the candidate vaccine for low- and middle-income countries, the rights group expressed its concern that this figure is not enough to cover the populations of these countries.
AstraZeneca will reportedly sell its candidate vaccine for no profit to low- and middle-income countries at between $2 and $3 per dose. The vaccine can also be stored at normal refrigerated temperatures, AstraZeneca has said, rather than other candidate vaccines that must be stored and transported at temperatures approaching minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
