List of recommended vaccines

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has put the Comirnaty coronavirus vaccine, developed by US company Pfizer in partnership with German start-up company BioNTech, on its emergency drugs list, according to its website.

This means that WHO recommends using the vaccine to protect the population during a pandemic. And it is up to each state to decide whether or not to use a particular drug.

Comirnaty is the first vaccine added to the WHO list since the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. "The World Health Organization (WHO) today placed Comirnaty vaccine against COVID-19 on the emergency list, making it the first Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine to receive emergency approval from WHO since the outbreak began a year ago", WHO said in a statement.

WHO said that experts from around the world had reviewed the safety, quality and efficacy data of the two companies vaccines. The experts found that the vaccines fully meet all safety requirements.

Earlier on Thursday, WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus wrote on his Twitter microblog that in addition to vaccine prophylaxis, public health measures are also important to fight the epidemic. He wrote: "Above all, we must increase investment in public health, from funding access to COVID-19 vaccines for all, to improving the training of our systems".