Category: Corona Virus Vaccine

Scientists at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine believe that theyve found a potential vaccine for the new coronavirus.

The researchers announced their findings Thursday and believe the vaccine could be rolled out quickly enough to significantly impact the spread of disease, according to their study published in EBioMedicine.

The vaccine would be delivered on a fingertip-size patch. When tested on mice, the vaccine produced enough antibodies believed to successfully counteract the virus.

The scientists say they were able to act fast because they had already done research on the similar coronaviruses SARS and MERS.

These two viruses, which are closely related to SARS-CoV-2, teach us that a particular protein, called a spike protein, is important for inducing immunity against the virus, read a statement from co-senior author Andrea Gambotto, M.D., associate professor of surgery at the Pitt School of Medicine.

We knew exactly where to fight this new virus.

The vaccine follows the traditional approach of ordinary flu vaccines, using lab-made pieces of viral protein to build immunity.

While the mice have not been studied over a long period of time, the vaccine was able to deliver enough antibodies against the coronavirus within two weeks, according to the researchers.

The studys authors are now applying for an investigational new drug approval from the US Food and Drug Administration. They hope to start human clinical trials within the next few months.

Researchers said they sided with using a patch, rather than a traditional needle, to deliver the spike protein to the skin, which elicits the strongest immune reaction.

The patch contains 400 tiny microneedles made of sugar and protein pieces. It would be applied like a Band-Aid with the needles dissolving into the skin.

The vaccine would be highly scalable for widespread use, the researchers said in a news release.

For most vaccines, you dont need to address scalability to begin with, Gambotto said. But when you try to develop a vaccine quickly against a pandemic, thats the first requirement.

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Scientists believe they found potential coronavirus vaccine

A coronavirus vaccine won't be ready for distribution in 12 to 18 months, as White House officials have assured the public, ousted federal vaccine scientist Rick Bright told Congress on Thursday.

"A lot of optimism is swirling around a 12-to-18-month time frame if everything goes perfectly. We've never seen everything go perfectly,"Bright told members of the Househealth subcommittee. "I still think 12 to 18 months is an aggressive schedule, and I think it's going to take longer than that to do so."

White House advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci and other U.S. health officials have repeatedly said a vaccine could be ready in 12 to 18 months, but Bright said "it doesn't mean for an FDA-approved vaccine."

He said there might be data available to attest to a vaccine candidate's safety by then, but whether the vaccine is effective is a separate question. President Donald Trump has gone further and said that he believes a vaccine will be ready by the end of the year.

Brightfiledawhistleblowercomplaintafterhewas removed last monthas director of theBiomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, which falls under the Department of Health and Human Services, a key player in coordinating a federal vaccine plan and overall pandemic preparedness.

Bright also said he was worried that safety issues could get overlooked in the rush to develop a vaccine. Trump has touted his plan to accelerate development of a vaccine, calling it "Operation Warp Speed." Heis expected to name a former pharmaceutical executiveto lead the effort.

"My concern is if we rush too quickly and consider cutting out critical steps, we may not have a full assessment of the safety of that vaccine, so it's still going to take some time," Bright said.

Even if the U.S. manages to find a safe and effective vaccine, the supply chain of equipment such as needles and syringes is likely to present "significant issues" to the rapid distribution of doses, Bright said. He added that there is still no federal plan for how doses of a potential vaccine would be distributed, which could present another obstacle.

Bright's comments come after Fauci warned senators on Tuesday, "There's no guarantee that the vaccine is actually going to be effective."

"You can have everything you think that's in place and you don't induce the kind of immune response that turns out to be protective and durably protective," Fauci said of a vaccine Tuesday. "So one of the big unknowns is, will it be effective? Given the way the body responds to viruses of this type, I'm cautiously optimistic that we will with one of the candidates get an efficacy signal."

The economy does not necessarily need to be shut down until a vaccine is rolled out, Bright said, but any easing of restrictions and reopening of businesses should be led by scientists. He added that an effective treatment, rather than a cure or a vaccine, could be developed more quickly and offer protection against Covid-19.

Biotech company Modernais currently leading the U.S. effort to develop a potential vaccine, which is being fast-tracked by the National Institutes of Health, an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services. More than 100 vaccines are in development globally as of April 30,according to the World Health Organization, with at least eight vaccine candidates already in human trials.

Last week,Moderna said the Food and Drug Administration has approved the company's vaccine candidate for phase two trials with 600 participants. The company said it is finalizing plans for a late-stage trial as early as this summer.

The vaccine being tested uses synthetic messenger RNA to inoculate against the virus. Such treatments help the body build immunity against a virus and can potentially be developed and manufactured more quickly than traditional vaccines.

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HHS whistleblower says coronavirus vaccine won't be ready in 18 months: 'We've never seen everything go perfectly' - CNBC

A new strain of Coronavirus, COVID 19, is spreading around the world, causing deaths and major disruption to the global economy.

Responding to this crisis requires global cooperation among governments, international organizations and the business community, which is at the centre of the World Economic Forums mission as the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation.

The Forum has created the COVID Action Platform, a global platform to convene the business community for collective action, protect peoples livelihoods and facilitate business continuity, and mobilize support for the COVID-19 response. The platform is created with the support of the World Health Organization and is open to all businesses and industry groups, as well as other stakeholders, aiming to integrate and inform joint action.

As an organization, the Forum has a track record of supporting efforts to contain epidemics. In 2017, at our Annual Meeting, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) was launched bringing together experts from government, business, health, academia and civil society to accelerate the development of vaccines. CEPI is currently supporting the race to develop a vaccine against this strand of the coronavirus.

Iceland will reopen its borders to tourists by June 15, according to an by Insider. Travellers will receive free COVID-19 tests upon arrival at the airport. Any who test positive will be forced to self-isolate for 14 days. Those with negative test results or who can produce other health documentation will be free to continue their travels in the country.

"I believe that if everything goes well, we should see some tourists here this summer," Bjarnheiour Hallsdottir, the chair of the Icelandic Travel Industry Association, told RUV. "For those who want to come, this will be a very real possibility."

3. Track the progress toward a COVID-19 vaccineResearchers from around the globe are racing to develop a coronavirus vaccine in record time. Health site StatNews has developed a tracker to monitor the progress of each of these efforts, as well as treatments for the disease, and help anyone understand the vast array of efforts under way.

Image: StatNews

Two nationwide surveys from China revealed new findings regarding COVID-19's impact on mental health. According to a study released this week, the pandemic's onset fueled a 74% drop in overall emotional well-being. The shift was more noticeable for those living near an outbreak epicentre or in vulnerable groups such as the elderly.

Those who believed themselves more informed about the virus reported feeling happier during the outbreak than those who felt less knowledgeable. "People's perceptions about themselves are often more potent in influencing their emotional well-being than the corresponding objective aspects," said Haiyang Yang, an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins Carey Business School and a co-author of the study.

Gaming and esports got a huge boost from the coronavirus lockdown. This week's podcast checks in with esports pioneeer Mike Sepso on how gaming's role is transforming under COVID-19 and why he thinks it could even replace some physical sports.

Find all previous episodes of World Vs Virus here.

Cars will be banished from miles of streets in central London to encourage more walking and cycling and help public transport cope with social distancing restrictions.

Mayor Sadiq Khan said central London would become one of the largest car-free zones in any capital city.

COVID-19 poses the biggest challenge to Londons public transport network in TfLs (Transport for London) history, he said.

It will take a monumental effort from all Londoners to maintain safe social distancing on public transport as lockdown restrictions are gradually eased.

7. Italy to reopen from 3 June

Italy - one of the worst-hit countries in Europe - will reopen shops on 18 May, and people will also be able to travel within their own regions from then. A complete lifting of the travel ban will happen on 3 June - allowing anyone to travel around, or beyond, the country.

License and Republishing

World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with our Terms of Use.

Written by

Linda Lacina, Digital Editor, World Economic Forum

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

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What you need to know about the COVID-19 pandemic on 16 May - World Economic Forum

May 15, 2020 / ByErika Edwards

The race to develop a COVID-19 vaccine is on, as scientists work as quickly as they can to find a way to prevent the disease that has sickened more 4.4 million people and killed more than 300,000 worldwide.

On Friday, Dr. Francis Collins, the head of the National Institutes of Health, said the agency isplanning to begin large-scale testingof several of the most promising vaccine candidates this summer. Despite such efforts, and despite statements from President Donald Trump this week, a vaccine most likely wont be ready by the end of the year.

However, progress has been made: Scientists at the University of Oxford posted the results of a small study conducted in rhesus macaques monkeys to the preprint serverbioRxiv. The study found that the experimental vaccinesuccessfully blocked the coronavirus in the monkeys, which are considered to be good proxies for how drugs could work in people because the monkeys share a majority of their genes with humans. Clinical trials with the Oxford vaccine are ongoing in humans.

For more on vaccine progress, NBC News spoke with Dr. Gregory Poland, director of the Mayo Clinics Vaccine Research Group. His teams coronavirus vaccine is in the early, preclinical stages of development.

The conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

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Coronavirus vaccine: This week's updates from Oxford and the NIH - OrthoSpineNews

Even as Covid 19 deaths in the US continue to grow, now surpassing 85,000, many states have begun loosening lockdown restrictions.

Regardless of the wisdom of such moves, its clear that theres a desire to return to something resembling normalcy across the country, as in Wisconsin, where locals returned to packed bars this week.

How many of those revelers there, and in other states like Texas with lax policies, may contract the virus remains to be seen, but a recent viral video from Japan gives an idea of how easily the infection might spread.

The video experiment, conducted by the public broadcaster NHK in conjunction with disease specialists, uses blacklight and a fluorescent substance to simulate how quickly germs can be spread across a variety of surfaces in environments such as restaurant buffets and cruise ships.

To begin with, one guest of 10 at a restaurant buffet is shown with the substance on his hands meant as a stand-in for the coronavirus. Over the course of a typical dining period, the rest of the guests behave in predictable fashion, selecting utensils from serving stations, enjoying their food, checking their phones and so on.

At the end of the experiment the backlight is turned on and the substance is revealed to be smeared everywhere: plates, foodstuff, utensils and even all over some of the guests faces.

A second experiment in the same environment showed the benefits of improved hygiene techniques. The infected person and the other diners washed their hands before and throughout the meal, and utensils and other implements were cleaned and replaced more frequently.

What the video demonstrated, is that it will spread to surfaces and to people very efficiently, John Nicholls, a clinical professor in pathology at Hong Kong University, told CNN. I think it really highlights the need of what people have been saying about hand hygiene to stop the spread of disease.

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Dying to go out to eat? Here's how viruses like Covid-19 spread in a restaurant - The Guardian

Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, addresses the coronavirus task force daily briefing at the White House in Washington, U.S., March 24, 2020.

Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

As drugmakers across the world race to develop acoronavirusvaccine, White House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said, "There's no guarantee that the vaccine is actually going to be effective."

Fauci delivered the somber warning Tuesday to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions during a hearing about the road to reopening businesses across the nation. U.S. officials have pointed to the development of a vaccine as a key turning point in the Covid-19 pandemic, even though it will takeat least12to 18 months.

As experimental vaccines are created, they will also need to be mass produced to be administered to the more than 7.6 billion people around the world. In the meantime, there are no proven treatments for the virus.

Fauci's comments highlight another complexity in the path to a vaccine.

"You can have everything you think that's in place and you don't induce the kind of immune response that turns out to be protective and durably protective," Fauci said of a vaccine. "So one of the big unknowns is, will it be effective? Given the way the body responds to viruses of this type, I'm cautiously optimistic that we will with one of the candidates get an efficacy signal."

The National Institutes of Health, an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services, has been fast-tracking work with biotech companyModernato develop a potential vaccine.More than 100 vaccines are in development globally as of April 30, according to the World Health Organization, with at least eight vaccine candidates already in human trials.

Moderna is completing its phase one trial. The company's potential vaccine contains genetic material called messenger RNA, or mRNA, that was produced in a lab. Last week,Moderna said it would soon begin phase two trials with 600 participants and was finalizing plans for a late-stage trial as early as this summer.

Until a vaccine is ready, Fauci said, the country needs to continue trying to mitigate and contain outbreaks.

Another worry among epidemiologists, Fauci said, is that the vaccine backfires and strengthens the virus.

There have been at least two vaccines in the past that have produced a "suboptimal response," he said. "And when the person gets exposed, they actually have an enhanced pathogenesis of the disease, which is always worrisome. So we want to make sure that that doesn't happen. Those are the two major unknowns."

Still, Fauci said he's "cautiously optimistic that we will have a candidate that will have some degree of efficacy, hopefully a percentage enough that will induce the kind of herd immunity that would give protection to the population at home."

CNBC's Kevin Breuninger and William Feuer contributed to this article.

Read CNBC's live updates to see the latest news on the Covid-19 outbreak.

WATCH: Dr. Anthony Fauci's opening statement to Congress on coronavirus pandemic

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Fauci tells Congress: 'There's no guarantee that the vaccine is actually going to be effective' - CNBC

Experts are hopeful that a vaccine against the SARS-CoV-2 virus will become available sooner rather than later.

As the death toll from thecoronavirusnears300,000 worldwide, doctors and scientists are scrambling to develop multiplevaccines to stop the pandemic. But it's not a competition. It might actually require several different vaccines manufactured and distributed by different labs in order to effectively eradicate COVID-19 from the planet, according toDr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, who co-authored a paper about vaccines published May 11 in the journal Science.

Most health experts say that the virus won't stop spreading until 60% to 70% of the world'spopulation is immune. Others say the only way to reach that level of immunity without a monumental death toll is through vaccines. Such is the opinion of Carl T. Bergstrom, a biology professor at the University of Washington andNatalie Dean, an assistant professor of biostatistics at the University of Florida, in a joint editorial published in the New York Times.

There are currently over 100 vaccines reportedly under development, withseven reportedly already in clinical trialsearlier this month. That means there aremore scientists working harder and faster on finding a vaccine than ever before in the history of pandemics. But even if one or more of the vaccines now in the works turns out to be effective,the FDA approval process typically takes a year or longer.

Keep track of the coronavirus pandemic.

It's still too early to make predictions, but here's what we know so far about the race to develop a coronavirus vaccine that may help usher in an end to the current pandemic.

One more note before we get underway. This article is intended to be a resource to help you understand current coronavirus vaccine research. It isn't intended to serve as medical advice. If you're seeking more information about coronavirus testing,here's how to find a testing sitenear you (and here'sanother way for Apple Mapsusers). Here'show to know if you qualify for a testandwhy there aren't any coronavirus at-home test kitsyet. This story is updated frequently as new information comes to light.

Read more:What it will take for life to return to normal after lockdown ends

A vaccine is a medical treatment that protects you against a disease like the coronavirus or smallpox. For a deeper dive into how vaccines work, check outthis in-depth coronavirus treatment explainer by CNET's Science Editor Jackson Ryan. The short and sweet of it is that a vaccine tricks your body into thinking it's already had the disease, so your body's natural defense -- the immune system --builds antibodies against it. Then, if you were to become infected, your body would call upon the antibodies to fight the virus before you feel sick.

Vaccines typically take about10 to 15 years to develop. That's in part because any new medical treatment needs to be thoroughly tested for safety before it can be distributed to millions or billions of people. Themumps vaccine took four years, which is widely considered the fastest vaccine approval in the history of infectious disease.

This month, the FDA fast-tracked a vaccine developed by Massachusetts-based biotech company Moderna, which is currently in Phase 2 clinical trials. The fast track process expedites FDA approval by opening more lines of communication between developers and regulators. It also parses out the review process incrementally, so the lab doesn't have to complete and submit all sections of the application at once.

Read more:Need a pulse oximeter? These models are in stock starting at $24

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This April, the White House began organizing "Operation Warp Speed," according to Bloomberg, a sort of coronavirus vaccine task force that has identified14 vaccine projectsthat it will focus on fast-tracking. The "Warp Speed" project itself,which the White House acknowledged during an April press briefing, has a stated goal of readying300 million doses of vaccineto be available by January 2021. That's a bit faster than the12- to 18-month estimated timeline proposed by Fauci, the NIAID director.

As of this writing there areover 100 vaccines under development in countries around the world, including the US, UK, Germany, Japan and China. Twelve are either already in clinical trials or starting in the next few months. Out of those 12, one particular standout seems to be Oxford University. Scientists there say their vaccinecould be ready by the fall of 2020.

Scientists from around the world are working toward developing a vaccine. So far 12 projects have either started or will soon start clinical trials.

Statistically, only about6% of vaccine candidates ever make it through to market, according to a Reuter's special report, and not just because they don't work. There's a whole litany of problems that could cancel even a promising candidate. Take, for example, what happened when scientists tried to develop a vaccine for SARS --it backfired and actually made people more susceptible to the disease. The same thing happened with avaccine for Dengue fever. To make matters worse, coronaviruses are a large class of viruses andso far there are no vaccines for any of them.

However, this particular coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, has some unique traits that may help researchers working on a vaccine. For example, some viruses, like the flu, mutate quickly and often, which is why there's a new flu vaccine every year. Early evidencesuggests that the coronavirus doesn't appear to do that. Althoughsome researchers have hypothesized that a more highly-contagious strain has recently developed, others aren't so sure. Either way, it's thought that the virus has not yet mutated significantly enough to disrupt vaccine development, nor is it expected to, though it's too soon to say for certain, and there are still many unknowns about the virus' behavior.

Rules and regulations vary by country, but, generally speaking, most industrialized nations have similar protocols for approving a vaccine. The following path is how vaccines are approved in the US under the Food and Drug Administration:

Until there's a vaccine, expect safety precautions like face masks and social distancing to be a part of everyday life.

The longer we go without a vaccine, the more likely focus will shift toward treatments, such as theexperimental antiviral drug remdesivir, which has reportedly shown promising results. With effective therapeutic treatments, many viruses that used to be fatal are no longer death sentences. Patients with HIV, for example, now can expect to enjoythe same life expectancyas non-HIV-positive individuals, thanks to tremendous advances in treatment.

Without a coronavirus vaccine, the road back to normal may be harder and longer, but not necessarily impossible.Coronavirus testing, includingantibody testing, andcontact tracingefforts would probably need to intensify.

Lockdown measures are alreadylifting slowly, althoughdepending on people's behavioral practicesand a potential resurgence of infections, cities and states may bring back certain quarantine measures, including requiringface masksandsocial distancing. Eventually, the global population may reach the 60% to 70% rate required forherd immunityto protect those who aren't immune.

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Coronavirus vaccine: When will it be ready? Everything we know so far - CNET

The other night, midway through watching a clip from Plandemic a documentary that went viral on social media last week, spreading baseless lies and debunked nonsense about the coronavirus to millions of Americans overnight I had a terrifying thought:

What if we get a Covid-19 vaccine and half the country refuses to take it?

It occurred to me that all the misinformation weve seen so far the false rumors that 5G cellphone towers fuel the coronavirus, that drinking bleach or injecting UV rays can cure it, that Dr. Anthony Fauci is part of an anti-Trump conspiracy may be just the warm-up act for a much bigger information war when an effective vaccine becomes available to the public. This war could pit public health officials and politicians against an anti-vaccination movement that floods social media with misinformation, conspiracy theories and propaganda aimed at convincing people that the vaccine is a menace rather than a lifesaving, economy-rescuing miracle.

Scariest of all? It could actually work.

Ive been following the anti-vaccine community on and off for years, watching its members operate in private Facebook groups and Instagram accounts, and have found that they are much more organized and strategic than many of their critics believe. They are savvy media manipulators, effective communicators and experienced at exploiting the weaknesses of social media platforms. (Just one example: Shortly after Facebook and YouTube began taking down copies of Plandemic for violating their rules, I saw people in anti-vaccine groups editing it in subtle ways to evade the platforms automated enforcement software and reposting it.)

In short, the anti-vaxxers have been practicing for this. And Im worried that they will be unusually effective in sowing doubts about a Covid-19 vaccine for several reasons.

First, because of the pandemics urgency, any promising Covid-19 vaccine is likely to be fast-tracked through the testing and approval process. It may not go through years of clinical trials and careful studies of possible long-term side effects, the way other drugs do. That could create an opening for anti-vaccine activists to claim that it is untested and dangerous, and to spin reasonable concerns about the vaccine into widespread, unfounded fears about its safety.

Second, if a vaccine does emerge, there is a good chance that leading health organizations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation or the World Health Organization will have a hand in producing or distributing it. If thats the case, anti-vaccine activists, who have been crusading against these groups for years, will have plenty of material stockpiled to try to discredit them. They are already taking aim at Mr. Gates with baseless conspiracy theories claiming that he created and is trying to profit from the virus. These theories will be amplified, and the attempts to discredit leading virus research efforts will intensify as the vaccine nears.

Third, if and when a Covid-19 vaccine is approved for widespread use, people may be required to take it before being allowed to fly on certain airlines, attend certain schools or enter certain businesses. Thats a good idea, public health-wise, but it would play into some of the worst fears of the anti-vaccine movement.

Mandatory vaccination has been an especially potent talking point for anti-vaccine activists, some of whom have rebranded themselves pro-choice when it comes to vaccines. And years of battling states and school districts over mandatory vaccine policies have given them a playbook for creating a tangle of legal roadblocks and damaging publicity campaigns.

I wanted to understand if my fears about a vaccine-related information war were valid, so I reached out to Neil Johnson and Rhys Leahy, two researchers at George Washington University. On Wednesday, their study of the online anti-vaccine movement was published in the science journal Nature.

The study, which mapped the vaccine conversation on Facebook during the 2019 measles outbreak, found that there were nearly three times as many active anti-vaccination communities as pro-vaccination communities. In addition, they found that while pro-vaccine pages tended to have more followers, anti-vaccine pages were faster-growing.

We expected to find a strong core of vanilla science people saying that vaccines are good for you but thats not what we found at all, Mr. Johnson told me. We found a real struggle online, where the public health establishment and its supporters are almost fighting in the wrong place.

The researchers found that Facebook pages pushing accurate pro-vaccine information were mostly clustered in an insular group, while the anti-vaccine pages treated vaccine resistance as a kind of political campaign, and used different messages to reach different types of undecided voters. A page promoting holistic health remedies might start seeding doubts about vaccines among liberal yoga moms, while a page promoting resistance to government-mandated vaccines might appeal to conservatives and libertarians.

Public health advocacy groups tend to be monolithic, sending one message that vaccines are safe and effective, Ms. Leahy said. The anti-vax movement is really diverse.

There is some reason for hope. Recent surveys have suggested that most Americans would take a Covid-19 vaccine if one were available today. Even politicians who have expressed skepticism about vaccines in the past, including President Trump, are rooting for one that can prevent the disease. And some public health experts I spoke to said public pressure to end the pandemic and return to normal life might overpower anti-vaccine activism.

People are seeing the toll of Covid-19 all around, said Kasisomayajula Viswanath, a professor of health communication at the Harvard School of Public Health. My guess is that if there is a successful vaccine, especially in the absence of treatment, people may discount the anti-vaccine groups.

But public acceptance of a Covid-19 vaccine is far from a sure thing. And seeing platforms like Facebook and YouTube struggle to contain the spread of videos like Plandemic makes me worry that when the time comes to persuade billions of people to take a critical coronavirus vaccine, our public health officials and social media companies will be outgunned by a well-oiled anti-vaccine movement that has already polluted the air with misinformation and conspiracy theories.

We can prevent that, but only if we start laying the groundwork before its too late. Organizations like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the W.H.O. need to understand the dynamics of online anti-vaccination communities and start waging a hearts-and-minds campaign to restore faith in the medical establishment while a vaccine is being developed. Social media companies need to take the threat of vaccine-related misinformation seriously and devote tremendous resources to stopping its spread. And those of us who believe in vaccines need to realize that we may not be in the majority for long and do everything we can to reach the people in our lives who might be susceptible to anti-vaccine propaganda.

To recover from this pandemic, we need to mobilize a pro-vaccine movement that is as devoted, as internet-savvy and as compelling as the anti-vaccine movement is for its adherents. We need to do it quickly, with all the creativity and urgency of the scientists who are developing the vaccine itself. Millions of lives and trillions of dollars in economic activity may depend not just on producing a vaccine, but on persuading people to accept it.

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Get Ready for a Covid-19 Vaccine Information War - The New York Times

Researchers around the world are working against the clock to create a vaccine to halt the spread of coronavirus.

From the moment it was clear we were facing a global pandemic, it was apparent that a vaccine would be a crucial tool in limiting spread and infection. And while we are seeing unprecedented cooperation between researchers, industry and regulators, there are still some huge challenges to be overcome in a very short space of time. Here are the main three:

1. Finding a vaccine that works

Across the world there are multiple teams working on various forms of vaccines, and the hope is that several will ultimately be approved. Given the need for rapid development, many of the regulatory hurdles have been relaxed to speed up processes - which can typically take up to a decade.

Vaccine development can take many years - and lots of money.

Image: Wellcome Trust

In the US, the speed at which researchers have been able to get authorization and tests to market has been increased significantly one had a turnaround time of just three hours.

One of the vaccines furthest down the line is being developed by biotech company Moderna. Chief Executive Stphane Bancel, talking on the World Economic Forums COVID Action Platform, argues that in some ways we got lucky with this virus. Although thousands have tragically died, unlike previous outbreaks such as the 1918 flu outbreak, children seem to be largely unaffected; equally, the virus itself is not very complex. HIV, by contrast, was discovered in the early 1980s and there is still no vaccine. Work on other coronaviruses such as SARS and MERS has also given us a head-start, he points out.

We are days away from starting phase two trials, Bancel says. The goal is to be in a position to potentially go to the regulators and ask for product approval as early as the end of this year.

Some countries already have emergency use provisions written into law which would allow early use of the vaccine. Bancel adds there may be circumstances where phase three trials could be conducted in parallel with emergency use among populations such as healthcare workers, or those at particular risk of developing severe symptoms.

2. Production at massive scale

Once an effective vaccine has been identified, it will need to be produced rapidly and on a massive scale.

What is unique is we have to go so fast and so huge, says Paul Stoffels, Vice Chairman of the Executive Committee and Chief Scientific Officer at Johnson & Johnson. When Ebola was a problem in Central Africa, with a few hundred thousand vaccines you could get it under control. Here you need billions of vaccines.

He highlights that in order to meet the production demand, industry needs to start preparing for manufacturing in parallel with research long before clinical results become available. To make this happen, scientists, regulatory bodies and industry need to work together.

A new strain of Coronavirus, COVID 19, is spreading around the world, causing deaths and major disruption to the global economy.

Responding to this crisis requires global cooperation among governments, international organizations and the business community, which is at the centre of the World Economic Forums mission as the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation.

The Forum has created the COVID Action Platform, a global platform to convene the business community for collective action, protect peoples livelihoods and facilitate business continuity, and mobilize support for the COVID-19 response. The platform is created with the support of the World Health Organization and is open to all businesses and industry groups, as well as other stakeholders, aiming to integrate and inform joint action.

As an organization, the Forum has a track record of supporting efforts to contain epidemics. In 2017, at our Annual Meeting, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) was launched bringing together experts from government, business, health, academia and civil society to accelerate the development of vaccines. CEPI is currently supporting the race to develop a vaccine against this strand of the coronavirus.

The collaboration is unprecedented, Stoffels adds. If I look at how we work today with the regulators in the world, where normally we have paper processes which take weeks and months to get feedback, today we talk about getting feedback from regulators within the day.

There are more than 100 vaccines in development right now, of which eight are already in clinical trials. The challenge is identifying which of these will be taken forward, says Seth Berkley, CEO of vaccine alliance GAVI. Industry can invest in manufacturing, but companies need to know that someone will buy the product. What we are trying to create now is an advanced market commitment, he says.

This goes more so for manufacturers in developing countries. Many have been hit hard by the pandemic, and it is important that they also continue to make existing vaccines for other diseases. We may need to provide them some finance upfront so that theyre available to help scale into the billions and billions of doses that we are going to need, says Berkley.

What seems likely is that several versions of the vaccine may be manufactured simultaneously in order to meet demand.

No pharma company could make five billion doses in the next year or so, but if several of us get to the finish line in the type of timelines I talked about, then we should be able to put a big dent in the spread of the virus, Bancel believes.

3. Widespread distribution

Distribution is going to be another challenge, particularly when it comes to the last mile. A vaccine would need to reach all corners of the world in order to effectively tackle the virus.

We have a global problem that requires a global solution, says Berkley. We need the best science in the world. We need the best manufacturing in the world. And obviously we are going to need industry from around the world to engage. If we have anybody left over anywhere as a reservoir of virus, it not only threatens them, but threatens the world.

GAVI is working with distribution companies such as UPS to come up with solutions, and is also looking into drone technology to deliver equipment. Alongside this, they are building a system of tracking and contact tracing.

Stoffels adds: We have tried to do this at the lowest possible cost, not for profit. We have tried to make sure there is a very large capacity available so that the quantity can support a large part of the world. And we are fighting for equitable access in the world, so that people can get access wherever they need it in the world. If we dont solve this infection in every part of the world, it will not be solved for the world.

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Production and distribution of billions of COVID-19 vaccines will take unprecedented global coordination - World Economic Forum

1. How COVID-19 is impacting the globe

A new UN report highlighted the mental health threat COVID-19 presents to millions, as it fuels high levels of distress in many countries across the globe.

The isolation, the fear, the uncertainty, the economic turmoil - they all cause or could cause psychological distress, said Devora Kestel, director of the World Health Organizations (WHO) mental health department.

An upsurge in the number and severity of mental illnesses is likely.

Image: UN

3. How the COVID-19 pandemic is fueling the stay-at-home economyLockdowns have sparked a rise in activities that can be done at home, from cooking to gaming. Video streaming, strong for a decade, is also seeing unprecedented growth.

Streaming subscribers around the world (613 million) have surpassed the number of cable subscribers (556 million), according to the Motion Picture Association of America. Additionally, Disney+, saw a 75% rise in subscribers since early February and surpassed 50 million paid subscribers in its first five months.

Though researchers are working around the clock to develop a vaccine to combat coronavirus, a vaccine alone with not eradicate the disease. Huge challenges will still remain to ensure everyone in the world can be protected from infection. These challenges include:

We have a global problem that requires a global solution, says Seth Berkley, CEO of vaccine alliance GAVI. We need the best science in the world. We need the best manufacturing in the world. And obviously we are going to need industry from around the world to engage. If we have anybody left over anywhere as a reservoir of virus, it not only threatens them, but threatens the world.

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Written by

Linda Lacina, Digital Editor, World Economic Forum

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

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What you need to know about the COVID-19 pandemic on 15 May - World Economic Forum