In Search Of COVID-19 Vaccine

Uttam Maharjan

 

With COVID-19 affecting almost all the countries in the world, medical scientists from across the world are racing towards developing a vaccine against the disease. The vaccine to be developed should be safe and effective in the first place. Secondly, the vaccine should be easily available to everyone who needs it.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) is coordinating with scientists, drug developers and financiers for the development of an anti-COVID-19 vaccine. And the initiative is being given momentum on an unprecedented scale.

Vaccines in trial
There are over 169 vaccines in the development stage, out of which 26 are in the human trial phase. Most experts believe that these vaccines will not be available for mass use till mid-2021. Basically, the trial of a vaccine has to pass through three phases and the third phase takes a long time. It may take several years. So it will take time for an anti-COVID-19 vaccine to be widely available.
For all that it will take at least ten months for an anti-COVID-19 vaccine to be available, the vaccine being developed by the British drug maker AstraZeneca is expected to be available by the end of 2020. Russia has developed a vaccine dubbed Sputnik V, which is purportedly showing positive outcomes as it can make antibodies with no side effects. The vaccine is claimed to be safe and effective.
Likewise, the US officials and Pfizer Inc. are pulling out all the stops to make an anti-COVID-19 vaccine available by late October, just ahead of the US presidential election. The US Food and Drug Administration has said that it will fast-track the approval process. Similarly, the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention has asked governors to expedite the permit and licence system for vaccine distribution by November 1. This move on the part of the Trump administration seems to be politically guided as it has been undertaken, eyeing the upcoming November election.
It is surmised that by the end of 2020, at least half a dozen vaccines could be in clinical trials. The vaccine being developed by the University of Oxford is in an advanced testing stage. The vaccine is taken as a promising candidate. There are already four coronaviruses in the human body. These viruses cause common cold-like symptoms. But no vaccine has been developed against any of these.
Although some people claim that a vaccine against the COVID-19 may not be required as many people have recovered from the disease without drugs or vaccines, the availability of vaccines is far better than having none. Vaccines produce the immune response and provide protection by training the immune system to recognise and fight the disease. This will obviate the need for imposing drastic measures like imposing lockdowns and social distancing. The effects of lockdowns on the economy of a country are gargantuan. It may take several years to bounce back from the fiscal damage and shock. However, other protective measures need to be taken by people.
When vaccines are developed and proved safe and effective, they need to be approved by the regulatory bodies in fast track fashion and distributed to the vast majority of people across the world. In the initial days, there may be a shortage of vaccines due to the manufacture of a limited number of doses. Such doses will have to be manufactured in billions so that everyone in need may have access to the vaccine. This will be a formidable challenge. So a system of priority needs to be established.
Healthcare workers who have to serve corona patients day in, day out should get the first priority. When healthcare workers are not in a position to take care of their patients due to the impact of the disease on them, more and more people will be affected. Old people are a vulnerable group. They have a weak immune system. They have also underlying medical conditions vis-a-vis young people. Their immune system cannot respond effectively to immunisation. So they may need shots reinforced by adjuvants. Adjuvants are immunity boosters that make vaccines effective. Similarly, high-risk groups of people should also be prioritized.
Although several vaccines are in the stage of development, nobody knows about the effectiveness of any. It may be noted that it takes years, if not decades, for a vaccine to be developed. But in the case of anti-COVID-19 vaccines, efforts are on a war footing to discover one in a few months. About two dozen vaccines are being tested on humans now. Besides, the regulatory bodies are also under pressure to approve it by sidelining rules so that it is available as quickly as possible to those who need it.
Although the WHO and other stakeholders are saying that anti-COVID-19 vaccines should be distributed to all the countries on equitable and fair terms, it is more likely that such vaccines will be available to the countries of manufacture and developed countries in the first phase. If such vaccines cannot be mass-produced, the chances of such vaccines reaching poor countries like Nepal will be slim. They will reach all the countries one day but it will take time, say three or four years.

Prevention
It is obvious that the situation will make a turnaround when vaccines are available. Elimination of some diseases has been possible due to vaccines. There are vaccines available for the prevention of 20 life-threatening diseases. Immunisation prevents 2 to 3 million deaths every year from such diseases as diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, flu and measles. That is why the importance of vaccines against COVID-19 cannot be downplayed. In fact, this has become the need of the hour.

(Former banker, Maharjan has been regularly writing on contemporary issues for this daily since 2000. uttam.maharjan1964@gmail.com)