Shares of AstraZeneca Pharma India rallied over 9 percent in early trade on Tuesday after the company’s COVID-19 vaccines received approval from the World Health Organization (WHO) for emergency use.

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A WHO statement said it had approved the vaccine as produced by AstraZeneca-SKBio (Republic of Korea) and the Serum Institute of India.

"We now have all the pieces in AXplace for the rapid distribution of vaccines. But we still need to scale up production," said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General.

Read here:

WHO approves AstraZeneca-Oxford's COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use

The listing by the UN health agency comes days after a WHO panel provided interim recommendations on the vaccine, saying two doses with an interval of around 8 to 12 weeks must be given to all adults and can be used in countries with the South African variant of the coronavirus as well.

The AstraZeneca/Oxford shot has been hailed because it is cheaper and easier to distribute than some rivals, including Pfizer/BioNTech's, which was listed for emergency use by the WHO late in December.

At 10:50 am, the shares of AstraZeneca Pharma India were trading 4.88 percent higher at Rs 3,808.70 apiece on the BSE as compared to a 0.53 percent gain on the benchmark Sensex.

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