As the coronavirus pandemic continues to sweep around the world, high hopes are placed in the search for an effective vaccine opposed to Covid-19.
This may just be a mistake, according to Dale Fisher, professor of infectious diseases at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine at the National University of Singapore (NUS), who told CNBC on Tuesday that we manage our expectations when it comes to locating a vaccine.
“I would see the vaccine only as an aid (the situation),” Fisher told CNBC’s Capital Connection. “It probably wouldn’t be the fairy tale (end) everyone needs, where we’ll have a hundred percent effective vaccine and a hundred percent of other people will take it, and they’ll all get it over the course of a month and we’ll be able to get back to our lifestyle. “
He argued that there is a “fairly low benchmark” for the effectiveness of a vaccine. The U. S. Food and Drug Administration, for example, said last June that it expected “a Covid-19 vaccine to save the disease or reduce its effect. “at least 50% of those vaccinated. “
“This means that for some of the other people who get the vaccine, it might not work,” Fisher said. “Most other people don’t expect it to be a hundred percent effective. Therefore, I think it is necessary not to have pharmacological interventions, such as dressing in masks and restricting meetings and things like that for a long time. “
Lately there are just under two hundred candidate vaccines in development, 38 of them in clinical evaluation, and only a few in complex clinical trials, according to WHO data. Greater attention is paid to applicants evolved through the pharmaceutical giants Moderna, AstraZeneca and Pfizer.
Fisher noted that the first coronavirus vaccine in the West (Russia has already produced its own vaccine) is unlikely to prove to be the best.
“It’s statistically highly unlikely that the first one will be the most productive and what I’d be worried about is that everyone would say, ‘Oh, it’s 50% effective, or 60%, let’s do it,'” and a few months later you can find one that has an 80% ERA or the first one fades after six months and has to re-strengthen,” he says.
In addition, Fisher noted that while one of these complex applicants is effective and approved, there is the mass production and distribution factor. The IATA airline industry framework has already warned of demanding logistical vaccine distribution situations given the special care required in handling them.
“WHO hopes to be able to vaccinate 20% of the global by the end of 2021, and it is already ambitious enough, it is a massive exercise to vaccinate the global,” he added.
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