A coronavirus vaccine will not be ready until the end of 2021, according to Dale Fisher, chair of the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network.
Fisher said that such expectation is “very reasonable” because of the necessary Phase 2 and 3 trials that will guarantee the safety and efficacy of a vaccine. He stressed the need to ramp up production and distribution. The actual administering of the vaccine would also be a factor.
According to Fisher, “we are currently on target” for a vaccine in 2021 with five Phase 1 studies currently underway.
“We’ve always felt that by about April, May, we would be in Phase 1 studies, so this means a potential vaccine has been invented if you like; we’re now trying it on individuals, basically to see if it’s safe,” Fisher told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” on Monday.
The current trials would make “early collection of data” to happen, he said. This would help determine whether the potential vaccine “actually works,” before bigger trials on safety and efficacy take place.
Premature
Fisher, a senior consultant at the infectious disease division at the National University Hospital in Singapore, said that President Donald Trump’s prediction that a vaccine would be available this year was “a bit premature.”
Meanwhile, Severin Schwan, CEO of pharmaceutical giant Roche, does not fully support the President’s proposed timeline. He stressed that such timeline was “certainly an ambitious goal.”
“I have no doubt that as so many companies are working on a vaccine in parallel, and as we see such great collaboration with regulators including the FDA, we can actually speed up the approval of vaccines,” he told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Monday.
“But still, typically it would take years to develop a new medicine. Most experts agree that it will take at least 12 to 18 months until we see a vaccine which is available in the necessary quantities for patients," Schwan added.
Remdesivir
Gilead Sciences released promising results from the preliminary clinical trials for their antiviral remdesivir. This drug could reduce the recovery time for patients who contracted the virus.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted the firm emergency use authorization for remdesivir.
Gilead's findings show that at least 50% of patients who took a five-day dosage of remdesivir improved. Gilead also said another trial from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) achieved its main goal. However, the company did not give more details.
However, Fisher pointed out that remdesivir is still far from the wonder drug the world needs despite the positive data.
Efforts from the public
What can beat COVID-19 would be a vaccine which would “get immunity in the public to stop this,” Fisher said.
He stressed that natural herd immunity was not the way to go. Herd immunity refers to a situation where a certain part of a population developed immunity to a disease such that it effectively curbs the spread of the disease.
People must acknowledge their role in protecting public health, Fisher said. He pointed out that there must be a continual “messaging” on that.
Aside from contact tracing, efforts like social distancing, going to the hospital and not going out when sick were “so important” and necessary, Fisher said.
