coronavirus vaccine: Coronavirus: with mounting pressure, global vaccine race intensifies

WASHINGTON: Four months after a mysterious new virus began its deadly march around the world, the search for a vaccine has taken on an intensity never seen before in medical research, with huge implications for public health, the global economy and politics.

Seven of the approximately 90 projects carried out by governments, pharmaceutical manufacturers, biotech innovators and academic laboratories have reached the stage of clinical trials. With political leaders, especially President Donald Trump, increasingly pressing for progress, and with huge potential gains at stake for the industry, drug makers and researchers have signaled that they are moving at speeds never seen before.

But the entire company remains concerned about the uncertainty of whether any coronavirus vaccines will be effective, how quickly it could be available to millions or billions of people, and whether in a hurry, compressing a process that can take 10 to 10 years. months, it will sacrifice security.

Some experts say the most immediate promising field could be the development of treatments to speed up the recovery of Covid-19, an approach that has generated some optimism in the past week by initially encouraging the results of research on remdesivir, a previously antiviral drug. tested in the fight against Ebola. The intensity of the global research effort is such that governments and companies are building production lines before they have something to produce.

Two of the main participants in the US The US, J&J and Moderna, have announced alliances with manufacturing companies, and J&J promises a billion doses of a vaccine not yet developed by the end of next year.

Not to be outdone, British pharmaceutical giant Astra-Zeneca said this week that it was working with a vaccine development project at Oxford University to make tens of millions of doses by the end of this year. The magnitude of the problem and the demand for a quick fix are bound to create tensions between the profit motives of the pharmaceutical industry, which generally struggles hard to get the most out of its investments in new drugs, and the public’s need for action. fast to effectively vaccinate as many people as possible.

So far, much of research and development has been supported by governments and foundations. Given what is at stake, it is not surprising that while scientists and doctors talk about finding a “global vaccine,” national leaders emphasize first immunizing their own populations. Trump said he was personally in charge of “Operation Warp Speed” to obtain 300 million doses of US weapons in January.

But other countries are also signaling their intention to nationalize their approaches. The most promising clinical trial in China is funded by the government. And in India, the executive director of the Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest producer of vaccine doses, said that most of its vaccines “would have to go to our compatriots before it goes abroad.”