Editor's Choice
Covid-19: Less haste, more safety
BMJ 2020; 370 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m3258 (Published 20 August 2020)
Cite this as: BMJ 2020;370:m3258
Rapid responses
Re: Covid-19: Less haste, more safety
Dear Editor
Early Vaccine For COVID-19?
During the 36th week of the COVID-19 Pandemic, more than 26.8 million confirmed COVID-19 cases have been registered globally with over 8.8 lakh deaths.
Vaccines are the only way to prevent the spread of COVID-19 along with social distancing, wearing of masks, and hand hygiene.
Vaccines for COVID-19 should undergo sufficient scrutiny, and safety and efficiency should be proved before they are approved for public use.
Premature and early release of vaccines, with inadequate trials and without any randomised controlled studies, for political gain, may add more fuel to the ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic crisis.
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has created unprecedented public/private partnerships to develop vaccines for COVID-19.
Operation Warp Speed (OWS) is a collaboration of several US federal government departments, including Health and Human Services and its subagencies, Agriculture, Energy and Veterans Affairs and the private sector. Within OWS, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has partnered with more than 18 biopharmaceutical companies to accelerate development of drug and vaccine candidates for COVID-19.
The COVAX initiative, part of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, is being spearheaded by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI); Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance; and WHO. The goal is to work with vaccine manufacturers to offer low-cost COVID-19 vaccines to countries. Currently, CEPI’s candidates from companies Inovio, Moderna, CureVac, Institut Pasteur/Merck/Themis, AstraZeneca/University of Oxford, Novavax, University of Hong Kong, Clover Biopharmaceuticals, and University of Queensland/CSL are part of the COVAX initiative. There are further candidates being evaluated in the COVAX Facility from the United States and internationally.
The US government has asked states to be ready to distribute coronavirus vaccines by early November; data on some key coronavirus vaccine candidates is expected to be out in the next month.
It is unlikely that a Covid-19 vaccine will be ready by the end of October, but that it is not impossible.
Around 60% of all vaccines in the world are being produced in India.
Competing interests: No competing interests
05 September 2020
M.A. Aleem
Emeritus Professor of Neurology * Visiting Specialist in Neurology ** Consultant Neurologist ***
The Tamilnadu Dr.M.G.R. Medical University * Dhanalakshami Srinivasan Medical College ** ABC Hospital ***
Chennai 600032* Perambalure 621212** Trichy 620018*** Tamilnadu India
@drmaaleem
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