Watch the WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus lead a briefing on the ongoing coronavirus pandemic in the player above.
172 countries have now signed up for a vaccine development programme that will ensure an equitable distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine, the World Health Organization (WHO) has announced.
The milestone was marked by the sending out of the terms and conditions of the programme on Sunday ahead of the deadline of August 31 for countries to express their intent on being involved.
So far, 70 per cent of the world's population is covered through the list of countries that have signed up.
Highlighting the efforts of governments around the world to mitigate the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic, Ghebreyesus said more funding for the COVAX act-accelerator vaccines pillar was “urgently needed to move the portfolio forward.”
He said COVAX aimed to deliver 2 billion doses of a safe, viable vaccine by the end of 2021.
"There is light at the end of the tunnel. As I said last week, together we can do it," he said.
The news comes as Russia became the first country in the world to licence a coronavirus vaccine after President Vladimir Putin authorised it ahead of phase 3 trials two weeks ago.
Putin went as far as announcing his daughter had already been inoculated.
Controversially, when the announcement was made, the vaccine had not yet completed advanced trials which would prove it works, something that breaks normal scientific protocol.
WHO chief scientist Dr Soumya Swaminathan indicated that the WHO had asked the Russians to share the data on efficacy.
“Safety needs to be assessed short term but also long term as some side effects are only picked up later on," she said.
Asked whether countries should consider ordering doses of the Russian vaccine, Dr Bruce Aylward, senior advisor to the director-general, said the WHO would not be recommending any vaccines that hadn't passed through its “pre-qualification emergency use licensing programme."
To date, no vaccine has met this milestone.
The emergency authorisation of convalescent plasma as a COVID-19 treatment in the US was also called into question in the briefing.
US president Donald Trump hailed the move as a "breakthrough" that could reduce deaths by 35 per cent.
Dr Swaminathan indicated there was "very low evidence" to show how safe and effective it was as a coronavirus therapy, stating that there were a number of ongoing clinical trials focusing on plasma with only limited data released so far.
"The results are not conclusive. The trials have been relatively small and the results in some cases point to some benefit but have not been conclusive. We have been tracking this and do ongoing... reviews to see where the evidence is shifting or pointing at and the moment it is still very low evidence,” she said.
Asked about school openings, technical lead Dr Maria Van Kerkhove said that the focus should be on reducing transmission in the community as “everyone has agreed how important it is that schools can reopen safely."
She added that while most children had mild or asymptomatic infections, “there are young children that can develop severe disease and there are children who have died from severe infection.”
“What we see from some of the preliminary results is that there is some difference in the transmission rate among the younger children and teenagers. So we do need to differentiate between different age groups,” she said.
The safe return of students to full-time education amid the ongoing pandemic has been the source of anxiety in many countries, including the UK. British prime minister Boris Johnson on Sunday called on parents to put aside their fears and send their children back to school, saying it was governments' "moral duty" to reopen schools.
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August 24, 2020 at 06:26PM
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Watch: 172 countries signed up to vaccines development programme, WHO announces - Euronews
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