The world is waiting for the covid-19 vaccine, which is a key tool to end quarantine, revive the economy and contain the epidemic.
How is vaccine development progressing?
What are the difficulties?
When will a “safe and effective” vaccine become available?
How much vaccine is needed?
Can enough be produced?
Focusing on the issue of vaccines, caijing nation weekly conducted a round of in-depth research, interviewed experts in the pharmaceutical industry, and talked with companies and institutions in the forefront of vaccine research and development, in an attempt to present a three-dimensional and rigorous picture of the current situation of vaccines.
On the afternoon of May 21, the share price of a Chinese biotechnology company called konshino (6185.hk, konshino) suddenly plunged, at one point exceeding 20%.
The surprise came a day after the company’s share price hit an all-time high.
The roller coaster of dramatic changes, all because of — the covid-19 vaccine.
On May 20, consinore struck a deal with PrecisionNano Systems, a Canadian biotech company, to develop an mRNA vaccine.
From this, consino also had “double insurance”.
Another covid-19 vaccine, jointly developed with the academy of military sciences, was the first to enter clinical phase II worldwide.
On May 21st, when shares plunged, the news that animal trials of vaccines at Oxford University had faltered was refresh. Although they produced antibodies, researchers found that rhesus monkeys injected with the vaccine were still infected with the virus.
The covid-19 vaccine, jointly developed by consinore and its partners, also USES the Oxford vaccine’s technical route.
It is not just consino that is at stake. The mood in global capital markets is rising and falling with the dynamics of the vaccine — seen by many as the hope for a return to normal life, the key to saving lives, ending quarantine, restoring economic order and containing the epidemic.
Countries and organizations around the world are already working together.
Previous data released by the world health organization (WHO) showed that more than 120 candidate vaccines are being developed and 10 are in clinical trials, five of which are being developed by Chinese companies/institutions.
It’s a global race against the virus.
The key to ending the “long struggle”
Because of covid-19, almost everyone is concerned about vaccines.
At present, covid-19 is still spreading around the world.
As of the deadline of May 30, the global total of confirmed cases of covid-19 had exceeded 5.8 million, with more than 3.67 million deaths.
In China, the covid-19 outbreak has been effectively controlled, but the threat of foreign importation still exists. “the virus knows no borders”. How to prevent the importation of the virus from abroad and at the same time guard against local outbreaks in China have become two priorities in China’s current fight against the epidemic.
According to an epidemiologist interviewed by a reporter from caijing nation weekly, a vaccine is the main hope for fighting the highly infectious virus, which is commonly susceptible to people.
The hope for real peace is to achieve herd immunity through vaccines.
“The war in China has moved from ‘total sniper warfare’ to ‘guerrilla warfare.'”
“Said liu yuanli, director of the school of public health at Peking union medical college hospital of the Chinese academy of medical sciences.
Although testing coverage is expanding, it is ultimately up to the vaccine.
The need for vaccines is likely to persist.
Most epidemiologists now agree that novel coronavirus is unlikely to disappear suddenly, as SARS did, but will remain in humans for a long time.
It will be a long struggle between human beings and novel coronavirus.
On May 25, the world health organization (who) reminded all countries, including those that have successfully contained the virus, to remain vigilant and prepare for a second peak of covid-19.
In fact, there is a widespread concern in the medical community that when the summer is over, as the weather cools and the outbreak is under control, there will be bad news again in areas where it is already under control.
Against such a “long struggle”, the hope is still vaccines.
Without a vaccine, “all we can do is contain the source of infection and block the path of transmission.”
According to xiong sidong, President of soochow university and an expert on immunology, the only measure that has proved effective so far is strict social isolation.
In an earlier analysis, imperial college London said that if the vaccine did not emerge, the cycle of closure, social isolation and social unclosure could continue indefinitely.
If a vaccine does not arrive in time, how long will it last?
Five years, according to another study.
The fulcrum of the “return to pre-epidemic”
No one wants to face such a situation.
Covid-19 has already crippled the global economy.
The world economic situation and outlook, released by the United Nations department of economic and social affairs, said the global economy would shrink by 3.2 percent in 2020, the steepest contraction since the great depression of 1930.
In the last two years, the global economy will lose a cumulative $8.5 trillion, equivalent to the economic gains of all countries in the previous four years.
The blockade is also costly.
In a recent report, the Asian development bank said border controls and travel restrictions in response to the outbreak would reduce global trade by $1.7 trillion to $2.6 trillion.
Economic activity across the region was paralyzed, and hundreds of millions of people around the world were out of work.
Corresponding to this, is the aviation, tourism, performance, cinema, catering and other industries suffered a huge impact.
In addition to these visible losses, there are also invisible hazards.
The epidemic has created social divisions. Isolation has not only created distance between people, but also cast a shadow of suspicion and mistrust in some parts of the world. It has even disrupted the global supply chain system and created new cracks in the globalized world.
If there is to be a “return to pre-epidemic” status, if there is to be an end to controls and social isolation, the hope for now is still vaccines.
If the vaccine is available, countries and regions with the right conditions will have greater flexibility in adjusting their prevention and control strategies.
Good public policy, when conditions permit, should strike a balance between protecting people’s health and trying to mitigate the political, social and economic impact, said yan zhong huang, a U.S. public health expert and director of the center for global health studies at northwestern university.
But for now, it’s still a problem.
Without a vaccine and tools to control the risk of the spread of the epidemic, the adjustment of prevention and control strategies should not be carried out cautiously.
Since January this year, covid-19 has been included in the national law on the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases.
Even in cases where the number of cases is already small, a high-risk response needs to be maintained to prevent a resurgence, even if it significantly reduces the efficiency of social operations.
How far away is the vaccine?
“When can I get the vaccine?”
It became the question everyone was asking.
The common answer in medicine, from a scientific standpoint, is that no one knows for sure.
Even the vaccine “vanguard” of clinical trials is very early.
The Oxford vaccine, for example, is part of this vanguard, with a research team predicting it could be available by September.
But its setback is yet another reminder that the plan to rely on vaccines to “get back to the pre-epidemic” may still face many uncertainties.
One expert interviewed told the paper that it generally takes between eight and 17 years for a vaccine to go from the laboratory to its use in the conventional process.
It took nearly five years to develop the mumps vaccine, which took the shortest time in history.
The development of covid-19 vaccine has been extremely rapid.
It is a recognized fact that since the release of novel coronavirus whole genome sequence in China on January 10, 10 vaccines have entered into clinical trials in more than four months, among which 3 are in clinical phase II and 5 are undergoing phase I and phase II combined clinical trials.
Gregory Poland, director of Vaccine research at the Mayo clinic and editor of the journal Vaccine, likened the development of a new Vaccine to “building an airplane while flying” — a sign of the enormous risks.
Errors in any of the details, whether the vaccine itself or the test method, can lead to failure.
The bigger challenge is to be safe and efficient, in addition to being fast.
Who officials recently reiterated that there are no shortcuts to vaccine development and that “it must be done in accordance with safe and effective standards, and no steps can be skipped.”
So, given the current state of development, a relatively common judgment in the medical community is that it will probably take 12 to 18 months to develop a safe and effective vaccine.
So who will get the go-ahead to market those “seed players” who enter clinical trials?
The answer is still unknown.
“So we’re encouraging multiple technology paths to go hand in hand.”
Richard Hatchett, CEO of the alliance for innovation in epidemic preparedness (CEPI), says competition encourages good ideas, which increases the chances of finding a viable vaccine.
China’s covid-19 vaccine research, for example, initially covered five major technical routes.
Everything has been worked out for the vaccine, including the government.
The Chinese government has long raised the development of covid-19 vaccine to the level of a major national project, requiring that a vaccine be developed as soon as possible at all costs.
It also means a huge investment, estimated by international organizations at more than $2 billion in the next decade alone.
A series of complex issues such as production, procurement, transportation and injection distribution remain between finding a vaccine and eventually making it available to all and controlling the epidemic.
For example, in the selection of alternative vaccines, both at home and abroad take “mass production” as an important indicator.
So far, the world is still working on the first problem — finding a covid-19 vaccine, which will be the first critical step in the fight against covid-19.