ON HOPE AND A PRAYER

AS THE WORLD AWAITS A PANACEA FOR COVID-19, PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES HAVE THEIR FEET FIRMLY ON THE ACCELERATOR TO GET PEOPLE A SAFE VACCINE TO STEM THE SPIRAL OF DEATH AND ILLNESS LOOMING OVER HUMANITY.

- GINA KRISHNAN

WHEN IT COMES TO THE COVID-19 pandemic, the world is tracking data by the minute: the numbers affected, mortality rates, tests to confirm cases, and possible treatments, of course. However, the one news update that humanity is waiting for anxiously—and with billions of fingers crossed—is the approval of a vaccine, with the stamp of being safe and effective for use. The various bulletins on the progress of the vaccine are followed across the board, by individuals, governments, and bodies like the World Health Organization (WHO) which is tracking over 140 companies that are working independently, or in partnership with academia, in a relentless race to exit the pandemic.

The world is restless, but a vaccine was never built in a day.

Vaccine testing is a four-stage process (see box) and has historically taken between two to 12 years. Back in 2009, the H1N1—or swine flu—vaccine was an exception. It took only 93 days to start the clinical trial after identification of the vaccine candidate and it could be deployed while the epidemic was in progress. But that was possible because of the nature of the virus—the vaccine was similar to that used for regular influenza.

Closer to the standard time frame is the development of the Ebola vaccine, which was approved in 2019 by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) long after the outbreak was over; the clinical testing had taken five years. Also the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), and Zika viruses ended up being geographically localised, and the vaccines are still under clinical testing in phase 1.