Chennai: At a time when the world is eagerly waiting for Covid-19 vaccine, a top WHO official has said effective coronavirus vaccine distribution can be expected only during the middle of 2021.
Speaking at a press briefing, WHO chief scientist Dr Soumya Swaminathan said that effective vaccine distribution can be expected to begin by the middle of 2021.
“So realistically speaking, probably the second half, the middle of 2021 – maybe the second quarter, the third quarter of 2021 – is when we can start seeing doses actually flowing into countries so that they can start to immunize their populations,” she said.
Soumya, who hails from Chennai, added: “We expect results from some of the candidates, which are already in Phase 3 trials, to come by the end of the year or beginning of next year, following which they’ll have to be scaling manufacturing to produce the hundreds of millions of doses that are going to be needed. In fact, the world is going to need billions of doses, and that is going to take time to manufacture. So we have to be optimistic and realistic at the same time.”