Colombia has approved emergency use of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine, the director of the food and drug regulator INVIMA said as part of a government address.

Colombia has secured vaccine agreements with a raft of pharmaceutical companies and the World Health Organisation-backed Covax programme.

“Once more in record time [...] INVIMA has approved the authorisation for the emergency use of pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca’s vaccine,” Julio Aldana, INVIMA’s director general, said in a nightly televised programme presented by Colombia’s President Ivan Duque.