GENEVA: The World Health Organization on Tuesday approved a Covid vaccine made by US pharma giant Novavax for emergency use, after the European Union medicines regulator gave it the green light.
The European Medicines Agency had assessed and approved Nuvaxovid on Monday.
It is made from a more conventional technology than others already approved, which has led officials in Brussels to express hope that this will help persuade those hesitant about vaccination to come forward.
The jab uses a traditional technology involving proteins found on coronavirus spike proteins that trigger an immune response.
It is a tried and tested approach, used for decades to vaccinate people against diseases including hepatitis B and whooping cough.
A so-called emergency use listing (EUL) by the WHO paves the way for countries worldwide to quickly approve and import a vaccine for distribution.
It also opens the door for them to enter the Covax global vaccine-sharing scheme, set up to provide equitable access to doses around the world and particularly in poorer countries.
The two-shot Nuvaxovid jab is the 10th Covid vaccine issued an EUL by the UN health agency.
WHO said Nuvaxovid was around 90-percent effective at reducing symptomatic cases of Covid-19 in two major clinical studies, one in Britain and the other in the United States and Mexico, involving more than 45,000 people.
In a separate document, WHO’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization recommended the new vaccine for use in people over the age of 18, with an interval of three to four weeks between the two doses.
“The vaccine should not be administered with an interval of less than three weeks,” it warned.
It can be kept at refrigerated temperatures between 2 and 8 degrees Celsius, giving it a logistical advantage in difficult-to-access regions over the mRNA vaccines, which must be stored at ultra-low temperatures.
Among the Covid vaccines already handed a WHO EUL is the Covovax shot, a version of Novavax’s vaccine made by the Serum Institute of India under license from the US-based company.
It was authorized on December 17.
Also figuring on the list are the mRNA vaccines produced by BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna, Johnson&Johnson, AstraZeneca (which is counted twice for the versions made in Europe and in India), the Indian-made Covaxin and Chinese-made Sinopharm and Sinovac.
The WHO also recently resumed evaluating the Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine against Covid-19, after several months in limbo, as it waited for additional data.
Rogerio Gaspar, head of WHO’s regulation and prequalification department, said Monday that the UN health agency would begin assessing the quality of the data received next month and aimed to carry out inspections on-site in February.
He told reporters he could provide “no date on approval because the approval will depends really ... on the quality of the information.”
Neither US nor EU medicines watchdogs have so far granted authorization for Sputnik V, which has been used in Russia and some other countries since late 2020.
WHO approves Novavax as 10th authorized Covid jab
https://arab.news/z6q96
WHO approves Novavax as 10th authorized Covid jab
- The European Medicines Agency had assessed and approved Nuvaxovid on Monday
- The jab uses a traditional technology involving proteins found on coronavirus spike proteins that trigger an immune response
Culture being strangled by Kosovo’s political crisis
- Cultural institutions have been among the hardest-hit sectors, as international funding dried up and local decisions were stalled by the parliamentary crisis
PRIZREN: Kosovo’s oldest cinema has been dark and silent for years as the famous theater slowly disintegrates under a leaky roof.
Signs warn passers-by in the historic city of Prizren that parts of the Lumbardhi’s crumbling facade could fall while it waits for its long-promised refurbishment.
“The city deserves to have the cinema renovated and preserved. Only junkies gathering there benefit from it now,” nextdoor neighbor butcher Arsim Futko, 62, told AFP.
For seven years, it waited for a European Union-funded revamp, only for the money to be suddenly withdrawn with little explanation.
Now it awaits similar repairs promised by the national government that has since been paralyzed by inconclusive elections in February.
And it is anyone’s guess whether the new government that will come out of Sunday’s snap election will keep the promise.
- ‘Collateral damage’ -
Cinema director Ares Shporta said the cinema has become “collateral damage” in a broader geopolitical game after the EU hit his country with sanctions in 2023.
The delayed repairs “affected our morale, it affected our lives, it affected the trust of the community in us,” Shporta said.
Brussels slapped Kosovo with sanctions over heightened tensions between the government and the ethnic Serb minority that live in parts of the country as Pristina pushed to exert more control over areas still tightly linked to Belgrade.
Cultural institutions have been among the hardest-hit sectors, as international funding dried up and local decisions were stalled by the parliamentary crisis.
According to an analysis by the Kosovo think tank, the GAP Institute for Advanced Studies, sanctions have resulted in around 613 million euros ($719 million) being suspended or paused, with the cultural sector taking a hit of 15-million-euro hit.
- ‘Ground zero’ -
With political stalemate threatening to drag on into another year, there are warnings that further funding from abroad could also be in jeopardy.
Since February’s election when outgoing premier Albin Kurti topped the polls but failed to win a majority, his caretaker government has been deadlocked with opposition lawmakers.
Months of delays, spent mostly without a parliament, meant little legislative work could be done.
Ahead of the snap election on Sunday, the government said that more than 200 million euros ($235 million) will be lost forever due to a failure to ratify international agreements.
Once the top beneficiary of the EU Growth Plan in the Balkans, Europe’s youngest country now trails most of its neighbors, the NGO Group for Legal and Political Studies’ executive director Njomza Arifi told AFP.
“While some of the countries in the region have already received the second tranches, Kosovo still remains at ground zero.”
Although there have been some enthusiastic signs of easing a half of EU sanctions by January, Kurti’s continued push against Serbian institutions and influence in the country’s north continues to draw criticism from both Washington and Brussels.
- ‘On the edge’ -
Across the river from the Lumbardhi, the funding cuts have also been felt at Dokufest, a documentary and short film festival that draws people to the region.
“The festival has had to make staff cuts. Unfortunately, there is a risk of further cuts if things don’t change,” Dokufest artistic director Veton Nurkollari said.
“Fortunately, we don’t depend on just one source because we could end up in a situation where, when the tap is turned off, everything is turned off.”
He said that many in the cultural sector were desperate for the upcoming government to get the sanctions lifted by ratification of the agreements that would allow EU funds to flow again.
“Kosovo is the only one left on the edge and without these funds.”
