‘First signs if a vaccine works likely in autumn’

ZURICH: First indications of the effectiveness of a potential vaccine against coronavirus may be available in the autumn, the head of the GAVI vaccine alliance told a Swiss newspaper, forecasting a long road from there to broad availability.

“Unfortunately, we really do not know which vaccine will work and whether there will be one at all. If we’re lucky, we’ll receive indications in autumn as to (a potential vaccine’s) effectiveness,” GAVI head Seth Berkley told NZZ am Sonntag in an interview published on Sunday.

“But there will still be a long way to go from there until an approved active substance becomes available in large quantities for the global population.”

Calling for globally coordinated efforts both to produce and share an eventual vaccine, Berkley said international agreement was needed to build up manufacturing capacity to rapidly produce a vaccine once one is found.

“Countries should work together to share in each other’s vaccines in case one’s own are not good,” he said.

He urged the World Health Organization (WHO) to issue clear guidelines on a vaccine’s use and distribution to prevent a vaccine first being made available to the rich at the expense of the people most in need.

THAILAND ENTERS RACE FOR VACCINE

SARABURI: Thailand is conducting tests on macaque monkeys as it races to produce a cheaper, alternative coronavirus vaccine it hopes will be ready by 2021, a top researcher said on Monday.

More than 100 candidate vaccines are currently in various stages of development around the world, at least eight of which are in clinical trials with humans, according to the WHO.