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A vaccine for Covid-19 will not be ready until the end of next year, according to Dale Fisher, president of the World Outbreak Alert and Response Network of the World Health Organization (WHO).
That timeline would be a “very reasonable” expectation due to the necessary Phase 2 and 3 trials of any vaccine to ensure both safety and efficacy, Fisher explained. There should also be an increase in production and distribution, as well as administering the vaccine, he said.
Fisher said “we are currently on target” for a vaccine in 2021 with five Phase 1 studies currently underway.
“We have always thought that around April and May we would be in Phase 1 studies, so this means that a potential vaccine has been invented if you want; we are now testing it in individuals, basically to see if it is safe,” Fisher He told CNBC “Street Signs Asia” on Monday.
Current trials would allow “early data collection” to assess whether the potential vaccine “really works,” before larger trials of safety and efficacy can be conducted, said Fisher, who is also a senior consultant in the infectious diseases division. at the National University Hospital of Singapore.
Fisher also said that comments by President Donald Trump on Sunday, who was confident that a coronavirus vaccine would be developed in late 2020, were “a little premature.”
Meanwhile, Severin Schwan, CEO of pharmaceutical giant Roche, also expressed some skepticism about the president’s proposed time frame, saying the end of this year was “certainly an ambitious goal.”
“I have no doubt that, as so many companies are working on a vaccine in parallel, and as we see great collaboration with regulators, including the FDA, we can speed up the approval of vaccines,” Squawk Box Europe told CNBC. Monday.
“But even so, it would normally take years to develop a new drug. Most experts agree that it will take at least 12 to 18 months until we see a vaccine that is available in the quantities necessary for patients.”
Chronology for a possible treatment with coronavirus
Preliminary results from clinical trials for Gilead Sciences antiviral remdesivir have been promising, indicating that it may shorten recovery time for hospitalized patients with coronavirus. Since then, the United States Food and Drug Administration has granted emergency use authorization for the drug.
Despite the very positive information about remdesivir, it’s still far from the proven miracle drug we’d love to see, according to Fisher.
But ultimately, the best defense against Covid-19 would be a vaccine that “would get immunity in the public to stop this,” Fisher said. The herd’s natural immunity was not the way to go, he said. Herd immunity refers to a situation where enough people in a population have become immune to a disease in such a way that it effectively stops the spread of the disease.
Until a vaccine is ready, each individual must understand the role they must play in public health, Fisher said. He stressed that there must be continuous “messages” about that.
Rather than relying solely on contact seeking measures, simple efforts that include social distancing, showing up in hospitals and not going out when the sick are “so important” and necessary, Fisher said.
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