WHO ‘Deeply Concerned’ Covid-19 Impact on Indigenous People in the Americas

The head of emergencies at the World Health Organization, Michael Ryan, hailed what he called “good news” Monday in the search for a vaccine to combat COVID-19.

He was responding to results from two COVID-19 vaccine candidates in early trials, but warned there was still “a long way to go”.

“We now need to move into larger-scale real-world trials,” Ryan told reporters at a news conference in Geneva. “But it is good to see more data and more products moving into this very important phase of vaccine discovery.”

Ryan’s comments came as scientists at Oxford University, in a paper published in The Lancet, said their experimental vaccine had been shown to trigger a protective immune response in hundreds of people who got the shot.

Also in the medical journal, Chinese researchers published a study on their experimental vaccine, using a similar technique as the Oxford team, that reported an immune response.

Ryan noted there are 23 COVID-19 candidate vaccines in clinical development, but until Monday only one had produced Phase 1 clinical data.

Also Monday, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus expressed concern about the impact of the virus on indigenous peoples, particularly in the Americas.

Tedros said more than 70,000 cases have been reported among indigenous peoples in the Americas, and over 2,000 deaths.

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