Vaccine `a great day for science'
Early results hint at hope to fight COVID-19, but many stay cautious
The results of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine trials aren't final, but they are promising, leading one of Canada's top scientists to declare it a “great day for science and for all of the planet.
“I am pretty excited today,” said Alan Bernstein about the announcement from Pfizer on Monday that its COVID-19 vaccine is more than 90 per cent effective, according to early data.
Bernstein is president and CEO of the global research organization CIFAR and a member of Canada's COVID-19 vaccine task force.
That task force made recommendations to the Canadian government about which vaccine candidates it should purchase.
The vaccine being developed by Pfizer with Germany's BioNTech — a company started by the children of Turkish immigrants — was among them. Canada bought 20 million doses with an option to buy more.
So far, that is enough to immunize 10 million Canadians, if the two-dose vaccine is eventually approved.
Ontario is working with the federal government and other provinces and territories to “plan for the delivery of a COVID-19 vaccine when one becomes available,” said a spokesman for the Ministry of Health. But that is “still months away.”
Monday's announcement appears to put the Pfizer vaccine in the lead of dozens of COVID-19 vaccines in development.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also responded to news of the early vaccine findings, saying he sees “light at the end of the tunnel” in the pandemic.
But, amid the excitement, many are urging caution.
There are still numerous questions that need to be answered before the Pfizer vaccine, or another promising vaccine, is ready to be approved and then administered to Canadians.
And that could mark the start of a new challenge: The difficulty of getting a high-demand vaccine into people's arms in a timely and equitable fashion.
The recent rollout of seasonal flu vaccines in Ontario was an indication of how difficult that can be. Many Ontario residents were left waiting in long lines or were out of luck because demand exceeded supply. Many family doctors received only a portion of the vaccines they requested.
The stakes are even higher for a COVID-19 vaccine and the challenges of getting the rollout right are significantly more complex.
The Pfizer vaccine and another promising candidate from Moderna are both RNA-based, which means they need to be stored at very cold temperatures — as low as -80 C. Maintaining that crucial cold-chain will make it more difficult to deliver vaccines to remote areas or even to hold mass vaccine clinics outside of hospitals, suggested Carolina Ilkow, who is co-lead on a project to develop a COVID-19 vaccine at The Ottawa Hospital.
The fact the vaccine requires two doses is another challenge. Even if demand is high, convincing people to return for a second vaccine creates an added complication, said Ilkow, who is a scientist at The Ottawa Hospital and assistant professor at the University of Ottawa.
Ilkow said that is why it is important that there be many vaccines in development, including the project she and scientist John Bell are leading at The Ottawa Hospital Research Institute.
Their vaccine, which should soon enter early stage human trials, would contain small parts of genetic material from COVID-19 embedded into a different virus that does not cause human harm. The replicating viral vaccine would produce its own adjuvant, which stimulates a stronger immune response.
“I think there is room for multiple vaccines,” she said. “I think every group in the world will continue working, making sure we have developed the best (vaccine) we can get.”
Ottawa Public Health, which would play a key role in administering a COVID-19 vaccine, said in a statement that it is closely monitoring the news about ongoing research into a vaccine.
“While cautiously optimistic, there is still much work to do and we are likely months away from a vaccination campaign.”
Significant vaccine decisions will be made by the federal government and provinces, OPH said, but it will use its experience with flu immunization to administer the COVID-19 vaccines safely during the pandemic, using physical distancing and enhanced cleaning, among other things.
Canada's National Advisory Committee on Immunization has already recommended highrisk groups, including the elderly, those with health conditions that put them at risk and health-care workers, be the first to get a vaccine. But until it sees data from Pfizer, the committee won't know whether it can safely make the elderly a priority, among other things, said Dr. Caroline Quach, who is a professor in the departments of microbiology, infectious diseases immunology and pediatrics at Université de Montréal and chair of the committee.
Among question marks about the vaccine are how quickly Pfizer — or any of the companies with which Canada has signed agreements — can deliver the required doses. “Delivering it in February is not the same as saying it will be delivered over 18 months,” said Quach.
She said the ability to keep the vaccine very cold is another challenge that is being discussed as planning cautiously begins on how to roll out vaccines when they are available.
Bernstein, meanwhile, said excitement about the apparent progress of the Pfizer vaccine should be tempered until the answers to several questions are known.
They include: How long does the protection against COVID-19 last? Is the vaccine effective in preventing the transmission of the virus? And whether the vaccine is proven safe and effective on those in high-risk groups. He agreed that having the infrastructure to keep it cold enough will be a significant challenge around the world.
But Bernstein noted that the Pfizer vaccine did not receive funding through the U.S. “Operation Warp Speed”, which means its distribution is unlikely to be complicated by politics.
But even with some cautions, Bernstein said the vaccine results have the potential to be a game-changer for a world that has been battered by a pandemic.
“We have been all glued to the TV watching results come in on the U.S. election. I think this result is arguably going to be more important than the U.S. election.”