Expert ‘cautiously optimistic’ vaccine ready by year end
A VIRUS expert at Queen’s University, Belfast has said he’s “cautiously optimistic” there may be a Covid-19 vaccine by the end of the year
However, Professor of Molecular Virology Dr Ultan Power said it’s unlikely it will be ready to be deployed worldwide.
He was speaking after the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance said on Monday there is increasing evidence it may be possible that some vaccine could be available before the end of the year in small amounts for certain groups.
Scientists are in a race to develop a vaccine in a process that usually takes years of testing before production can be scaled up, while tens of thousands of people have volunteered to take part in human trials.
The World Health Organisation said there are more than 300 potential vaccines, with around 40 being tested on humans but only nine reaching the final stage. One of the nine is being developed in the UK by Astrazeneca at Oxford University, the others in China, the US and Russia.
One, the Moderna vaccine is being developed to trick the body into producing viral proteins itself. No RNA vaccine has ever been approved for an infectious disease but it’s thought it may, if successful, be easier to mass produce than traditional vaccines.
Dr Power said the two he would describe as the leaders at the moment — the Moderna vaccine and the Oxford vaccine — have major hurdles to overcome.
“The Moderna vaccine — this technology has never been used before so the capacity to be able to scale up and produce quality assured batches will be significant,” he said.
The Oxford vaccine is delivered via a chimpanzee virus, in a method called the vaccine vector. It contains the genetic code of the protein spikes found on the coronavirus and triggers a strong immune response in the human body.
Recently, the Oxford trial was suspended because of an adverse reaction in a participant.
Dr Power said: “This is something you can’t predict until you actually get into a clinical trial and see what the data tells us.”
“The advantage in so many different strategies is that you hope one of them will work because developing a vaccine is such a complex process and so many
‘This is something you can’t predict until you actually get into a clinical trial’
things can go wrong all the way through.”
There are many reasons why a vaccine might fail, he added. “One would be toxicity, one would be that it’s just not efficacious — it doesn’t induce sufficient immunity to prevent infection. There are a number of hurdles that have to be overcome.”
This is why Dr Power said he’s doubtful that we will have a vaccine that is ready to be deployed worldwide by the end of the year.
But he added: “Will we have data that tells us whether a vaccine is efficacious and safe? Possibly.
“That’s where the cautious optimism comes in.”