What are our chances of getting the corona (Covid-19 disease) vaccine in the near future?
It's been 28 years to create a safe varicella vaccine, 15 years for the Rotavirus vaccine, 30 years for AIDS, and we still don't have a vaccine for HIV.
As I write this article, it is known that around 3.5 million people around the world have officially suffered this disease and 250,000 people died. Even if you put the silent cases on top of this, billions of people around the world are waiting to encounter this virus. Of course, our hope is that the virus will undergo good mutations and its lethality will decrease until this encounter occurs. Our more realistic hope is to find a vaccine that will give us immunity against this virus.
My best words as an orthopedist to those who are completely against vaccination are:
Polio is a viral disease, and this disease would still have paralyzed most of our legs without the vaccine. You can still see people around you who have not been vaccinated against polio and are experiencing its effects. So being completely anti-vaccine is not a conscious act.
Let's list the vaccine production stages first:
Academic research (normally takes 2 years)
Pre-clinical trials (normally 2-3 years)
Phase 1 trial (normally 1 year)
Phase 2 trial (normally 2 years)
Phase 3 trial (normally 2 years)
Factory installations (normally 8-12 years)
Production (normally 1 year)
Usage approval (about 6 months)
Distribution to the world (6 months 1 year)
According to this calculation, when a normal process works, we can get the vaccine in 2036. How realistic is it to have a safe and effective COVID19 vaccine in a short time? Let's have a look;
COVID-19 has infected millions of people on Earth and killed more than 70,000 people as of May 10, 2020. Some countries are making preparations to open up. In our country, preparations are made to return to normal life. When it comes to normal life, this will be a cautious new normal life. As our Minister of Health, Mr. Fahrettin Koca said, otherwise, we will be hurt too much. On the other hand, many people, especially the older age group and those with high risk factors, have to stay home, and it will continue to be risky for them to go out until they get a vaccine or better medication.
No one knows exactly what percentage of people with COVID-19 will die at the end of this. Let's say this ratio is between 0.1-1%. The eyes of fast vaccine opponents are above the results of laboratory studies; therefore, a little failure or talking early will adversely affect their efforts.
As I mentioned above, the processes to create safe vaccines are very long. But now our situation is different, of course. Large budgets are now allocated to the world's laboratories that are competing with time and each other. The whole world is trying to squeeze the decades-long process into 18-20 months.
At the time of writing this article, 95 different vaccine studies continue with at least 254 different treatment protocols in the world.
But at the end of the day, only about 10 percent of them will be accepted in treatment.
SO WHY IS EVERYONE TALKING FOR A PERIOD LIKE 18-24 MONTHS?
In fact, we have been trying to develop coronavirus vaccines since the days of SARS and MERS for this family of viruses that made this epidemic and are called corona among the people. So we have an idea of how this family of viruses works. In other words, the structure of this new infested virus called SARS-CoV-2, which causes Covid19 disease, is 80 percent similar to the previous SARS virus.
Robert van Exan, a well-known cell biologist who has worked in vaccine development for decades, says it is difficult but not impossible for us to see this vaccine until 2021 or 2022.
Vaccines are being developed in more than 95 known places.
First of all, it is useful to know the following truth; In order to attract companies that will invest, these labs say they can develop vaccines quickly, because there will be billions of dollars in profits. These laboratories talk to investment companies and mobilize all the means they have for this race.
Of course, most drug or vaccine candidates will fail. The probability of finding a safe vaccine is under 10 percent. The remaining ninety percent will either not be effective enough, or their side effects will be detected and abandoned on the first try. This is part of the drug / vaccine development business.
Of course, the more groups work to develop this vaccine, the greater our chances will be.
VACCINE DISEASE
It should also be known that some early vaccines cause illness rather than protection. To prevent this from happening, there is actually a long and tiring test period. This test period is tried to be shortened due to the world's urgent need for vaccination.
mRNA VACCINE
Several scientific teams are working on a new type of mRNA vaccine. This approach, which has not been done before, is a good idea and has raised hopes. Nevertheless, this type of vaccine has a rapidly deteriorating nature and after testing, we will be able to understand the facts. I think it would be better to have such a vaccine after a comprehensive testing process.
It will be necessary to carefully follow the approval bodies abroad regarding this vaccine. They had previously allowed vaccines that could cause disease. But at the end of the day, the vaccine was finished with the smallpox vaccine, and here the world will need the vaccine very quickly. We will be following scientific developments in this regard closely.
TEST
Once a good vaccine candidate is obtained, it is necessary to test this vaccine. Of course, the necessary monetary funds are allocated for this work and clinical studies are allowed. In order not to cause a vaccine-related problem, the first clinical trials must be done very slowly and very carefully. It is necessary to test whether this vaccine really works in different age groups and different bodies. In addition, if a side effect is seen, or if, say, less than 1 percent of those vaccinated, the disease starts, many tests are required to fully adjust this vaccine dose. It may be possible to shorten this time-consuming process. Of course, thousands of subjects and volunteers should be in this job and their data should be collected properly, and the side effects of each vaccine type developed should not be overlooked.
PRODUCTION
We are talking about a vaccine that will have to be given to billions of people, not a pill that will be used by 50000 people. This requires the establishment of a huge, mountain-like production facility. Of course, considering that this vaccine will most likely be an injection, billion billion packages, production boilers and of course time will be required. Also, if this vaccine is not produced in our country, we cannot be the first to reach these resources and moreover, we have to make serious payments. Of course, some factories around the world are preparing for this degree of production, but first it is necessary to make sure that there is an effective vaccine that has no side effects.
INSPECTIONS AFTER VACCINE PRODUCTION:
Now because the world is stuck here and economies are experiencing historical collapse, can you imagine the pressure on producers and auditors? Once a vaccine is found, not all risk and side effect controls will be subject to the time strain. Fast side effect notifications and follow-ups will also need to be done like a mobilization.
RESULT
Finding a vaccine is a very difficult task. Fortunately, the world has been testing vaccines for corona viruses for a long time. Although they were not very successful, for example, we could be active in Ebola. So we must have hope. But don't hold your breath for a very effective vaccine yet.
Right now, we will be paying attention to physical distances and we need to continue the habits we have acquired during this period of closure.
We should learn the use of masks better. Most fabric masks do not work, but suggestions for making them effective are easily found on YouTube.
We should not put the mask under our noses like a banned repellant, and we should not endanger the lives of others or our own.
And of course continue to wash your hands effectively ...