COVID-19 Vaccine May be Ready by Yearend – WHO’s Tedros

GENEVA (Reuters) – A vaccine against COVID-19 may be ready by year-end, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday, without elaborating.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called for solidarity and political commitment by all leaders to ensure equal distribution of vaccines when they become available.

“We will need vaccines and there is hope that by the end of this year we may have a vaccine. There is hope,” Tedros said in closing remarks to the WHO’s Executive Board meeting that examined the global response to the pandemic.

The EU health regulator has launched a real-time review of a COVID-19 vaccine developed by U.S. drugmaker Pfizer PFE.N and Germany’s BioNTech 22UAy.F, it said on Tuesday, following a similar announcement for rival AstraZeneca’s AZN.Ljab last week. The announcement by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) could speed up the process of approving a successful vaccine in the bloc.

Read more at: Reuters