WHO’s Tedros: World should not be complacent after COVID-19 vaccine news

Commenting on the promising results of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine, the World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news briefing on Tuesday that “many questions” remained and it was no time for complacency, per Reuters.

“While we continue to receive encouraging news about COVID-19 vaccines and remain cautiously optimistic about the potential for new tools to start to arrive in coming months, right now we are extremely concerned by the surge in cases we are seeing in some countries, particularly in Europe and the Americas,” Tedros said.

Soumya Swaminathan, WHO’s Chief Scientist, said that the Moderna results were “quite encouraging”.

“But there are many, many questions still remaining about the duration of protection, the impact on severe disease, the impact on different sub-populations especially the elderly, as well as the adverse events beyond a certain period of time,” she added.

These comments come after Moderna Inc reported on Monday that its experimental vaccine showed 94.5% efficacy. Last week, Pfizer Inc’s vaccine showed that is more than 90% effective in preventing the infection.