UW medical experts share the latest COVID-19 vaccine and treatment developments – Dailyuw

The University of Washington Medical Center is quiet on April 1, 2020.

UW medical experts explained the current state of COVID-19 vaccine and treatment development and what it could mean for the course of the pandemic in a May 4 webinar hosted by the department of global health.

Deborah Fuller, a professor of microbiology, discussed how the fastest development of a vaccine to date is five years, meaning the timeline for rapid development of a COVID-19 vaccine looks very different.

The race for a COVID-19 vaccine follows an accelerated timeline with the three major phase trials condensed into an 18-month timeframe. Fuller said nucleic acid vaccines, like the DNA and RNA vaccines she is developing, are believed to be perhaps the most reliable candidate for a rapid response vaccine.

When a vaccine does become available, Fuller said distributing it to billions across the world will serve as a major hurdle, suggesting ring vaccination as a solution for stopping the pandemic without everyone needing to be vaccinated, though Fuller said the broader goal is still to vaccinate the majority of individuals.

Instead of having to vaccinate the entire 90% of the population, you would actually vaccinate all of the close contacts, forming a ring around that person so the virus really has nowhere to go, she said. The chain of transmission gets broken and thats going to be able to shut down the pandemic much quicker.

Christine Johnston, the associate director of UW Medicines Virology Research Clinic, explained how the nature of emergency response to the pandemic is also affecting treatment options, including the process of collecting evidence and utilizing pre-existing treatments for the virus.

Due to the long time frame for producing new medications, Johnston said the main focus has been to repurpose drugs to treat COVID-19. The drug hydroxychloroquine, for example, has been touted as a potential treatment with a reliable safety profile, though preliminary studies have been conflicted on its effectiveness and associated risks.

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The hydroxychloroquine is not what people would call a huge game changer in the hospitalized patient setting, but I still think it begs more clinical trials and more well conducted studies, Johnston said. I dont think Im ready to say that this medication is ineffective yet.

Johnston also said another potential treatment option known as remdesivir, which was previously developed as a treatment for Ebola, had promising in vitro data, animal model data, and preliminary clinical trial results. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted remdesivir Emergency Use Authorization and Johnston noted that remdesivirs manufacturer will be donating 1.5 million doses of the drug.

Responding to a student question on ensuring an equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines and treatment, Fuller said it was important to make the vaccines free to the public. She also explained there is likely to be numerous vaccines with different levels of effectiveness across demographic groups which will establish a cross fertilization of vaccines to accommodate the wider population.

Addressing the same question, Johnston voiced her concerns that the distribution of treatments will not be equitable in the United States and that this inequity will be magnified worldwide.

I think its very difficult for people to take equity into account even in the best cases of situations and so in a pandemic I think the equity issues are even more skewed, Johnston said. This is an opportunity for us to think about how to make equity front and center when were developing new treatments.

Reach reporter Jax Morgan at news@dailyuw.com. Twitter: @jaxbmorgan

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UW medical experts share the latest COVID-19 vaccine and treatment developments - Dailyuw