By
Tolu Ajiboye
August 22nd, 2023
Notably, the World Health Organization has approved two different versions of the AstraZeneca vaccine that were found out to be approximately 63% effective.
AstraZeneca PLC (NASDAQ: ADN) stock was at $51.69, up 3.19% at teh previous close. But it retraced approximately 1.08% during today’s premarket. The spike in AstraZeneca stock for the past few hours has been attributed to news that the company’s coronavirus vaccine candidates have been approved by the World Health Organization (WHO) for emergency use. As a result, AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine candidates joined Pfizer Inc (NYSE: PFE) and BioNTech SE (NASDAQ: BNTX) vaccine that was approved late last year for emergency use.
The AstraZeneca vaccine candidates are set to be produced from different places including India and South Korea and distributed to low and middle-income countries. The World Health Organization has ostensibly noted that the top priority for vaccination is the health workers and people at high risks.
“Countries with no access to vaccines to date will finally be able to start vaccinating their health workers and populations at risk, contributing to the COVAX Facility’s goal of equitable vaccine distribution,” said Mariângela Simão, WHO assistant-director general for Access to Medicines and Health Products.
AstraZeneca Stock amid the News about WHO Approval
Analysts are extremely bullish on the AstraZeneca stock market, whereby a survey by MarketWatch indicates AZN stocks received an average of Buy rating from 18 ratings. With the coronavirus still a direct threat to our normalcy, AstraZeneca expects the demand for coronavirus vaccines to remain high throughout the year, and perhaps in subsequent years depending on the vaccine and coronavirus.
AstraZeneca has a reported market capitalization of approximately $135.81 billion with 2.63 billion outstanding shares. According to metrics provided by MarketWatch, AstraZeneca stock has ranged between $36.15 and $64.94 in the past 52 weeks.
More volatility is expected to spike in the coming quarters as the company braces to deliver more vaccine doses in over 100 different countries. Notably, the World Health Organization has approved two different versions of the AstraZeneca vaccine that were found out to be approximately 63% effective. However, the organization has set the minimum age of people to receive the AstraZeneca vaccine at 18, stating that more research is needed to be conducted on people below 18 years.
Apparently, one of the major reasons that the World Health Organization approved AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine candidates was due to the fact that they are easily stored thus suitable for low-income and mid-income earners.
The vaccination of low and middle-income countries will significantly help them rebound from the coronavirus-related crisis. Besides, most of them do not even have the capacity to deal with the rising number of infections.
Notably, it is expected that more than 300 million doses of the vaccine will be made available to 145 countries through COVAX.
