NZ scientists want start on vaccine
New Zealand could be years away from returning to normal unless the Government injects millions into launching a Covid-19 vaccine programme.
That is the warning from some of our country’s top scientists behind an article published in yesterday’s New Zealand Medical Journal.
“A vaccine is the only clear exit strategy that will allow New Zealand to return to normal,” James Ussher, clinical microbiologist at the University of Otago, told the Herald. Researchers including Ussher fear that without our country making any contribution to the global vaccine effort, New Zealand could be left behind.
“It is prudent for New Zealand to invest in a Covid-19 vaccine development programme that will provide New Zealand with the option to develop and produce its own vaccine or to produce a vaccine developed offshore.
“It also builds the capability for the country to respond more quickly should another global pandemic emerge in the future, which undoubtedly will happen.” When asked if accessing a vaccine could come down to which country made the highest bid, Ussher said: “Though that is not the World Health Organisation’s goal, that behaviour has been seen in the past and we cannot rule out that it won’t happen again.
“There’s no guarantee that if a vaccine is produced in America, for example, that we will see that vaccine until America has met its needs.”
Ussher said the Government could not afford to “sit back and hope for a best-case scenario”.
At best, a vaccine could be developed overseas in 12 to 16 months but delays were inevitable. About 78 vaccines were in the early stages of development worldwide.
Ussher and his team want the Government to fund a New Zealand programme that would evaluate international vaccines, develop its own and prepare for rapid production for an approved vaccine.
Malaghan Institute director Professor Graham Le Gros has echoed these concerns saying the vaccine will not just land on New Zealand’s doorstep all nice and shiny and cheap in 18 months’ time, unless it gets really engaged in defining partnerships, developing its own programme and developing its own capability, because there is going to be a global shortage of production capacity.
A vaccine programme would need an initial investment of $5 million but further investment would be needed.
Dr Nikki Turner, director of the Immunisation Advisory Centre, last week told the Herald she didn’t think it was likely that NZ could make its own vaccine from scratch but the country did have the capacity and ability to design vaccines and run clinical trials.