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COVID vaccine must be proven safe before mass rollout - WHO's chief scientist

FILE PHOTO: A logo of the World Health Organization (WHO), is seen before a news conference in Geneva

GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Health Organisation's chief scientist said on Friday that no vaccine for the new coronavirus should be approved for a worldwide rollout until it had undergone sufficient scrutiny and proved its safety and efficacy.

"No vaccine is going to be mass-deployed until regulators are confident, governments are confident, and the WHO is confident it has met the minimum standard of safety" WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said at a news briefing in Geneva.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay and Emma Farge; Editing by Alison Williams)