Do not expect wide-spread COVID-19 vaccinations until mid-2021: WHO

A WHO spokeswoman, during a briefing, stressed on the importance of rigorous checks on a vaccine's effectiveness and safety

Moneycontrol News

September 04, 2020 / 17:50 IST

4 | Chinese President Xi Jinping offers to cooperate with India, BRICS countries to develop COVID-19 vaccine: Chinese President Xi Jinping on November 17 offered to cooperate with India and other BRICS nations in the development of vaccines against the coronavirus and called for holding a symposium by the five-member bloc on traditional medicine to explore its role in the COVID-19 prevention and treatment.

Even as the race for an effective COVID-19 vaccine continues, the World Health Organisation (WHO) on September 4 said it does not expect widespread vaccination until mid-2021 and that "none of the vaccine candidates have a clear signal of efficacy at the level of at least 50 percent" sought by the body.

A WHO spokeswoman, during a briefing, stressed on the importance of rigorous checks on a vaccine's effectiveness and safety.

"We are really not expecting to see widespread vaccination until the middle of next year," Margaret Harris told a UN briefing in Geneva.

"Phase 3 must take longer because we need to see how truly protective the vaccine is. We also need to see how safe it is," she added. In phase 3, large scale clinical trials are conducted among people.

Harris did not refer to any specific vaccine candidate, news agency Reuters reported. "A lot of people have been vaccinated and what we don't know is whether the vaccine works...at this stage we do not have the clear signal of whether or not it has the level of worthwhile efficacy and safety...," she added.

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

Show