According to updates from AstraZeneca, the company and its partners managed to provide 2 billion doses of its COVID-19 vaccine to more than 170 countries within 11 months of its first approval and a little more than 18 months after AstraZeneca partnered with Oxford University on development.
“Our vaccine has played a key role in tackling the biggest public health emergency of our lifetime: an estimated million lives saved, 50 million infections prevented, two billion doses delivered,” Pascal Soriot, CEO of AstraZeneca, said. “The numbers are remarkable, and I’d like to thank everyone who put their lives to one side to help in this incredible endeavour. While much of the world still has to be vaccinated, and there is still much more to do, today is a proud day and testament to what can be achieved when we all work together.”
The majority (two-thirds) of these doses have gone to low and lower-middle income countries. That effort was thanks in part to the efforts of the international COVAX Facility, run jointly by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and the World Health Organization. (WHO), which dispensed more than 175 million doses across 130 countries.
“This is a proud moment and tribute to the efforts of researchers who developed and tested the vaccine, manufacturing staff who continue to work tirelessly to make it, logistics teams who ship it to clinics in every corner of the earth, armies of vaccinators who get it in our arms, and the public who have been with us since the first clinical trial dose on 23rd April 2020,” Sir Andrew Pollard, professor and director of Oxford Vaccine Group, said.
The AstraZeneca COVID-19 has to date been granted conditional marketing authorization or emergency use status in more than 90 countries, as well as an Emergency Use Listing from WHO. Though AstraZeneca handles most vaccine production, in India, it is manufactured and supplied by the Serum Institute of India under the name COVISHIELD.