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Basseterre, St. Kitts, June 24, 2021 (SKNIS): Chief Medical Officer of St. Kitts and Nevis, Dr. Hazel Laws, has confirmed that the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines received from SK Bioscience, a South Korean based facility, are approved by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Dr. Laws made her statement on June 23, 2021, at the National Emergency Operations Center COVID-19 Briefing in response to a question asked whether the Federation had received vaccines from the SK Bioscience company and whether they were approved vaccines.

“Both are approved by the World Health Organisation and so the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine produced by the Serum Institute of India has been approved by the World Health Organisation and so is the AstraZeneca produced by the SK Bioscience in South Korea.”

“Actually, the batch we received from the SK Bioscience South Korea was actually accessed through the COVAX facility, which is the global facility through which countries and territories can access COVID-19 vaccines,” she further stated.

“So, it was sent to us through the most official route and so yes both batches of vaccines have been officially approved by the World Health Organisation through its emergency use listing procedure.”

SK Bioscience also has a license agreement with Novavax to produce 40 million COVID-19 vaccine doses for South Korea as well as a contract development and manufacturing deal for global supply.

SK Bioscience announced on May 17 that its facilities, processes, and quality systems in Andong, Korea, used for the production of AstraZeneca and Novavax COVID-19 vaccines have received EU-Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) certification from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) which allows SK Bioscience to export vaccines to the European markets.