The health minister today shared the reservations of the World Health Organization (WHO) regarding the covid-19 vaccine announced by Russia, saying that “safety and efficacy” cannot be sacrificed for the sake of speed.
“It is very important to speed up the research process in relation to finding an effective vaccine, but we cannot, in the process, sacrifice either safety or therapeutic efficacy,” said Marta Temido at the pandemic follow-up press conference.
The minister indicated that regarding the Sputnik V vaccine, the first for covid-19 to be announced, "there are facts that have been referred to, that phase 3 [community testing] will not possibly have been fully carried out".
On the other hand, “no one is available to waste the opportunity to have a tool to help respond to this disease”, he admitted.
Marta Temido stated that the Portuguese drug regulatory authority (Infarmed) is “working with the European Medicines Agency, integrated in a competent, capable network and with all the means at its disposal to ensure that Portugal is among the countries that will have access to what will be an effective vaccine for covid-19”.
The World Health Organization (WHO) received on Tuesday with caution the news that Russia had registered the first vaccine in the world against covid-19, stressing that it must follow the defined pre-qualification and review procedures.
"Accelerating progress should not mean compromising security," said WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic at a press conference, adding that the organization is in contact with Russian and other authorities to analyze the progress of different investigations. relatively ongoing vaccines.
The Russian vaccine, whose registration was announced Tuesday by Russian President Vladimir Putin in a meeting with the cabinet of ministers, was not among the six that the WHO said last week were more advanced.
The Geneva-based organization cited, among the six, three vaccine candidates developed by Chinese laboratories, two from the United States (from pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Moderna) and the British one developed by AstraZeneca in collaboration with Oxford University.
According to Putin, the Russian vaccine is “effective”, has passed all the necessary tests and allows to achieve a “stable immunity” against covid-19, and should enter into circulation from January 1, 2021.
However, many scientists, at home and abroad, questioned the decision to register the vaccine before the scientists completed the so-called Phase 3 study.
This phase usually takes several months and involves thousands of people and is the only way to prove that the experimental vaccine is safe and works.
Comments