(VOVWORLD) - Countries are racing against time to develop therapeutic treatments for COVID-19 and a vaccine to prevent the disease, which continues to ravage the world. But a joint effort is needed to speed up the vaccine development.
A vaccine for COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the novel coronavirus, is desperately needed to slow the pandemic’s spread and lower its death toll.
Efforts to develop a vaccine
Several countries have announced research results on developing a vaccine, including successful cultivation of the virus in a lab, decoding the entire genome of the virus, and thoroughly analyzing its molecular.
Last Thursday Australia's national science research agency began first-phase testing of a vaccine on two ferrets at a veterinary lab in the city of Geelong, Victoria. Successful tests on animals will be followed by tests on humans.
In Japan, scientists of biopharmaceutical company AnGes Inc. and Osaka University are currently testing a promising vaccine on animals.
The British American Tobacco Company announced that its biotechnology research facility in the US is developing a potential vaccine using tobacco leaf-derived proteins. The vaccine is now in a pre-clinical trial phase. The company plans to produce 1 to 3 million doses of the vaccine a week beginning in June.
Global effort needed
Normally, vaccines must be tested on animals and then on humans. It takes from 6 to 36 months to produce a vaccine but researchers said it could take longer to produce a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. However, given that the number of deaths from the coronavirus is growing rapidly, scientists in every country are under enormous pressure to produce a vaccine without delay.
The World Health Organization is concerned that countries racing to develop a vaccine without global cooperation could lead to insufficiently tested vaccines which are ineffective or could have harmful side effects or weaken some people’s immune system. Once a vaccine has been shown to be safe and effective, investments in infrastructure will be needed to rapidly distribute the vaccine on a global scale. Countries need to make political commitments to ensure that they will have access to the vaccines and medicines once researchers succeed.
The good news is that multilateral organizations funded by governments, pharmaceutical companies, and private donors are ready to pour hundreds of millions of USD into vaccine development efforts. But as the COVID-19 pandemic continues wreaking havoc on humanity, countries need to cooperate to accelerate vaccine development and distribution and not waste time duplicating each other’s efforts.