The ongoing coronavirus pandemic is a global unresolved issue for one main reason: a viable vaccine has yet to be released to the public.
With research starting in January of this year and human trials in March, according to National Geographic, “more than 150 coronavirus vaccines are in development across the world—and hopes are high to bring one to market in record time to ease the global crisis.” However, none of these vaccines have successfully undergone the clinical and approval processes in their entirety in order to be distributed to the public. This causes the following question to arise: When will we get a COVID-19 vaccine?
A chart demonstrating how many vaccines form a part of the multi-stage clinical trial process.
Jonathan Corum, Sui-Lee Wee and Carl Zimmer / The New York Times
Making a vaccine viable and marketable is a lengthy process, which on average lasts from 10-15 years.
However, pharmaceutical companies as well as official health organizations are trying to shorten this process significantly: their goal is to produce a working vaccine in months.
As stated by The New York Times, the testing process for vaccines undergoes the following stages: the preclinical stage, phase I, phase II, phase III and phase IV.
The preclinical stage involves animal testing: 92 vaccines are currently being developed in this stage.
Phase I is where the vaccine is given to a small amount of people to test whether it is safe and what dosage should be injected.
Phase II is where the vaccine is given to hundreds of people divided into different pools, which includes people with the disease, the elderly and children.
Phase III is when the vaccine is given to thousands of people divided into even more groups, to see how effective it is among a large number of people (considering the effectiveness of a vaccine could potentially vary depending on the race, age or underlying health conditions of individuals).
Phase IV can be divided into early or limited approval (Russia and China have approved vaccines without waiting for the results from phase III, which is dangerous.) Approval regulators in each country determine whether they want to approve the vaccine or not, and this process can be rushed and prioritized during a pandemic.
In order to make the vaccine development process faster, researchers combine these phases.
However, even after a vaccine is approved, there are still many issues to consider. Not all populations will have access to it, whether it is because of the manufacturing and distribution decisions taken, or the determined cost. According to BBC, it is predicted that a viable vaccine will be released in the middle of 2021. However, this has yet to be guaranteed to work.
Though many are competing to become the viable vaccine for the COVID-19, it is still unknown how effective these vaccines will be, and when we’ll have access to them.