Vaccines no ‘ silver bullet’ in battle
Despite progress on jabs, public health measures remain vital, forum hears
Vaccines could be a “game changer” in the battle against the COVID- 19 pandemic but they are “not a silver bullet”, participants in a forum said on Thursday in stressing the need for basic safeguards such as face masks.
Despite optimism over the development of vaccines, public health measures are essential before the doses are made available on a timely and “equitable and affordable” basis, they told the Bloomberg New Economy Forum.
Stephane Bancel, chief executive officer of drugmaker Moderna, whose late- stage COVID- 19 vaccine trials show 95 percent efficacy, said: “What makes me more excited is the fact that 11 people with severe disease, they were all on placebo.”
That suggests the vaccine could prevent almost all cases, while the remaining few infections could have just mild symptoms.
“We think this could be a gamechanger,” Bancel said in a discussion at the online forum. “So, what we’re doing now is getting the final data all locked up submitting to the regulatory agencies around the world.”
Both Moderna and another drugmaker partnership, between Pfizer and BioNTech, have recently announced successful vaccine trials.
But “it’s not a silver bullet”, Bancel said of a vaccine. People still need public health measures, such as wearing a mask, which is the best weapon “when you have no other way at the beginning”.
He said several countries, including China, have done an excellent job in controlling the virus, while in some countries it’s “very out of control”.
“In some places you see people going to crowded places with no mask, or eating inside restaurants with no mask. I don’t understand it; it makes no sense to me,” he said.
Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, also said a vaccine is a good technical weapon for control of the virus, but it couldn’t be used to bring the infections under control before next spring.
“I think the public health measures, like wearing masks, social distancing, hand- washing, and ventilation are still the effective measures to be used,” Wu said.
Asked what the world can do better in a similar crisis next time, Wu said it’s important for countries to take action at the same pace, for “without getting compromise or agreement”, it is very difficult to bring a pandemic under control.
In the United States, after more than 11 million people have been diagnosed with infections and at least 250,000 have died from the coronavirus, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued recommendations on Thursday, a week before Thanksgiving, asking people not to travel for the holiday nor spend it with people from outside their households.
Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates said the country’s scenario in the virus control was “mind- blowing”. The Microsoft co- founder said the only thing the US did well was fund research and development of new medicines from companies around the world.
Asked if the disease can actually be eliminated, Gates said: We don’t know enough yet. There’s a good chance we can do that. But we’ll have to look at the vaccines, how good they are at blocking transmission.
Also speaking at the forum, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, directorgeneral of the World Health Organization, said that all the instruments to fight COVID- 19, especially therapeutics, diagnostics and vaccines, must be available on the basis of equitable and affordable access for all.
“Let me be clear, vaccines cannot only go to the wealthy in a few select countries. This is not just a moral imperative and a public health imperative. It’s also an economic imperative,” Tedros said.