COVID -19 vaccine access needed ‘throughout world’: European Medicines Agency

The head of the European Medicines Agency said that all countries must have access to coronavirus vaccines, as G7 leaders were expected to pledge to donate 1  billion doses to poor nations, AFP reported.

Emer Cooke also said in an interview that while the Amsterdam-based watchdog was confident current vaccines were effective against all different variants, that could “change quickly.”

The comments by Ireland’s Cooke — who took over at the EMA late last year as it plunged into the scramble for a Covid vaccine — came as G7 leaders met in Britain to discuss how to recover from the pandemic.

“This is not within the competence of the EMA so I can only speak from a personal perspective, where I really believe we need to ensure access, availability and access throughout the world, not just in the countries that have the means to pay for them,” Cooke said.