On 1 June 2021, WHO validated the Sinovac-CoronaVac COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use, Emergency Use Listing (EUL) is a prerequisite for COVAX Facility vaccine supply. It also allows countries to expedite their own regulatory approval to import and administer COVID-19 vaccines.
Besides Sinopharm, the current vaccines listed under EUL are:- Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine (31 December 2020); two AstraZeneca/Oxford COVID-19 vaccines on 15 February 2021, produced by AstraZeneca-SKBio (Republic of Korea) and the Serum Institute of India; COVID-19 vaccine Ad26.COV2.S developed by Janssen (Johnson & Johnson) on 12 March 2021; and Sinopharm on 7 May 2021.
These EUL vaccines are developed by US, Europe and China. The Muslim community of around 1.8 billion people and is probably nowhere near in producing a WHO approved EUL vaccine. The Muslim countries are also relatively the least vaccinated as compared to the current world average.
Maybe pharmaceutical companies in large Muslim nations could form a consortium to mobilise shared resources to address the needs of medical solutions confronting the ummah in a more innovative manner in the near future. Otherwise, the Muslim ummah will remain as a passive bystander in a rapidly changing world shaped by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity.
Abdul.Rahman Othman
Secretary General