GENEVA (Reuters) – The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday that three COVID-19 vaccines were in the late stages of review for possible emergency use listing, in addition to the one made by Pfizer and BioNTech already approved.
An internal WHO document seen by Reuters gives timelines for the agency’s possible vaccine approvals, indicating that shots from Moderna, AstraZeneca and China’s Sinopharm and Sinovac could win emergency go-ahead in coming weeks or months.
“We have one vaccine so far listed. We have 3 more in final phase to be assessed for listing, we have 2 more still submitting…In total we have 13,” Mariangela Simao, WHO assistant director-general for access to medicines, vaccines and pharmaceuticals.
The WHO was not aware of any deaths linked to the Pfizer vaccine, nor any other vaccine, she added.
(Reporting by John Miller in Zurich and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva)
