Until researchers develop a vaccine, we are facing a new normal – one that we can expect to live with for at least another year. But what exactly is COVID-19 and why haven’t we seen a vaccine yet?
COVID-19 is an abbreviation of coronavirus disease 2019. Coronaviruses are a family of viruses that cause illnesses like SARS, MERS and even the common cold. COVID-19 is just one kind of coronavirus and still relatively mysterious. Within two months, Ohio jumped from one confirmed case to more than 25,000.
The good news is that, while vaccine developments take years or decades, researchers don’t have to start completely from scratch to develop a COVID-19 vaccine. Researching SARS and MERS vaccines have helped scientists identify possible approaches to developing a protection against COVID-19.
There are some roadblocks to producing this, however, according to the Mayo Clinic, these roadblocks include thorough safety testing requirements, accounting for the fact that, like the flu, people can become re-infected with COVID-19. It’s more complicated when one considers that older adults don’t typically respond as well to vaccines as younger populations.
Vaccine development is broken down into stages, and each stage has a highly variable timeline, which means it’s uncertain when a COVID-19 vaccine will be available.
Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease and head of the White House Coronavirus Task Force Dr. Anthony Fauci optimistically says that we could have a COVID-19 vaccine by the end of 2020. However, Dr. Seema Yasmin, director of the Stanford Health Communication Initiative, emphasized in a WIRED Magazine article that this would be an emergency use authorized vaccine, not a fully approved one.
“Here’s a comparison,” Yasmin says in the article, “the fastest vaccine we previously developed was for mumps, and that took four years to develop, and typically, it takes 10 to 15 years to develop a vaccine. So, 12 to 18 months would be record-breaking.”
What’s the Difference?
It’s important to note that a vaccine and a cure are very different. A vaccine is a preventive product that protects people against a certain disease. A cure involves treating infected patients to help eliminate the diseases from their system. Currently, COVID-19 does not have a vaccine or a cure.
The Three Major Steps
- Phase 1: Exploration
In this stage, drug companies play with different approaches to developing a vaccine. This phase normally takes two to four years. Because COVID-19 is similar to the first SARS virus, however, researchers have a head start.
- Phase 2: Preclinical
After possible vaccine candidates are identified, each one is tested in cell cultures and animals to see if it triggers an immune response.
“If there’s no immune response or the vaccine is causing harm to cells, then it’s back to square one,” says Yasmin in the same article. “The reality is there is no way to speed up this stage, and it will probably take at least a year (for COVID-19).”
- Phase 3: Clinical trials
After a vaccine candidate passes the clinical trials, it will be given to a small group of people. After that, progressively larger groups of people will receive the vaccine.
These phases normally take years to complete, but some bioethicists have recently proposed that because COVID-19 is so serious, challenge trials may be considered to accelerate the process, according to experts at the World Health Organization. In a challenge trial, researchers intentionally infect the volunteers they vaccinate in a controlled environment to see if the vaccine effectively produces immunity.
“The potential value of doing (challenge trials for COVID-19) is amplified above almost any other case you can think of,” says Seema Shah, a medical ethicist at Northwestern University and Laurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago in an article for WIRED Magazine. “So, even though we’d be crossing a boundary that’s been in place for a very long time, we think there’s enough reason to start investing in laying the groundwork for (challenge trials) now.”
Vaccine development for COVID-19 has already started. According to Healthline, officials at the National Institutes of Health recently said that large scale testing could begin as early as July with a vaccine available as soon as January 2021.
According to Healthline, major vaccine development projects that are currently underway as of late May include:
- Moderna. This Seattle, Washington, company just announced that its mRNA-based vaccine has successfully produced COVID-19 antibodies in all 45 trial participants in the initial clinical phase of development.
- Inovio. When COVID-19 appeared in December 2019, this company had already been working on a DNA vaccine for MERS, which gave them a head start in producing a COVID-19 vaccine. It’s currently preparing to start a phase 2/3 trial this summer.
- University of Oxford. The University of Oxford in England started a clinical trial with more than 500 participants in late April 2020. Oxford officials said that its potential vaccine has an 80 percent chance for success and could be available as early as September. Its vaccine uses a modified version of the virus to trigger the patient’s immune system.
Emily Real is a contributing writer. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com.
