The Director-General of World Health Organization, WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said yesterday that a vaccine would not by itself stop the coronavirus pandemic.
Ghebreyesus stated this on a day US biotech firm, Moderna, announced that its experimental vaccine against COVID-19 was 94.5 percent effective, marking a second major breakthrough in the vaccine hunt.
Pfizer had also last week said it had developed a vaccine that was 90% effective against the virus. The pandemic is raging months after it broke out, with infections soaring past 54 million and claiming more than 1.3 million lives.
“A vaccine will complement the other tools we have, not replace them.
A vaccine on its own will not end the pandemic,” Ghebreyesus said. The WHO’s figures for last Saturday showed that 660,905 coronavirus cases were reported to the UN health agency, setting a new high watermark.
That number, and the 645,410 registered on Friday, surpassed the previous daily record high of 614,013 recorded on November 7.
The WHO boss said supplies of the vaccine would initially be restricted, with “health workers, older people and other at-risk populations (to) be prioritised. That will hopefully reduce the number of deaths and enable the health systems to cope.”
