WHO okays Sinopharm vaccine for emergency use

The Chinese jab is the sixth and the first non-Western vaccine to gain emergency use approval.

The WHO had already given emergency approval to Covid-19 vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and, last week, Moderna.

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, announced that the body had authorized the emergency use of a COVID-19 vaccine made by China's Sinopharm.

"This afternoon, WHO gave emergency use listing to sign off on Beijing's COVID-19 vaccine, making it the sixth vaccine to receive WHO validation for safety, efficacy and quality," Ghebreysus said.

 "This expands the list of vaccines that COVAX can buy and gives countries confidence to expedite their regulatory approval and to import and administer a vaccine."

The decision, made by a WHO technical advisory team, means the Sinopharm shot could eventually be included in the UN-backed COVAX initiative aimed at guaranteeing access to vaccinations in poorer countries in the coming weeks or months.

The jab would then be distributed via UNICEF and the WHO's regional office in the Americas.

To date, China has distributed some 65 million doses of the Sinopharm vaccine and more than 200 million doses of the Sinovac jab — mainly to countries that have had difficulty securing supplies of vaccines developed in the West, particularly in Latin America, Asia and Africa.

The overall global COVID-19 caseload has topped 155.6 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 3.25 million, according to Johns Hopkins University.

In its latest update on Friday morning, the University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed that the current global caseload and death toll stood at 155,623,871 and 3,237,435, respectively.

The US continues to be the worst-hit country with the world's highest number of cases and deaths at 32,603,569 and 580,054, respectively.

In terms of infections, India follows in second place with 21,077,410 cases.

The other countries with more than two million confirmed coronavirus cases are Brazil (15,003,563), France (5,789,283), Turkey (4,977,982), Russia (4,799,872), the UK (4,444,259), Italy (4,082,198), Spain (3,559,222), Germany (3,491,098), Argentina (3,095,582), Colombia (2,951,101), Poland (2,818,378), Iran (2,610,018), Mexico (2,355,985) and Ukraine (2,152,280).

In terms of deaths, Brazil comes second with 416,949 fatalities.

Nations with a death toll of over 50,000 are India (230,168), Mexico (218,007), the UK (127,843), Italy (122,263), Russia (110,366), France (106,011), Germany (84,239), Spain (78,726, Colombia (76,414), Iran (73,906), Poland (68,993), Argentina (66,263), Peru (62,976) and South Africa (54,620).