As the new coronavirus epidemic continues to ravage the world, scientists from all countries are accelerating the pace of vaccine development. Some foreign media analysts say that even if the new crown pneumonia treatment options are found is not enough to deal with this “pandemic”, the realization of global immunity still need to rely on a vaccine, and this process is destined to face many obstacles. According to the British newspaper The Guardian reported on April 4, even the most effective and severe containment strategy for the new coronavirus has only slowed the spread of the virus. In response to the new coronavirus, which already constitutes a global pandemic, the prospect of developing a vaccine as a way to prevent humans from getting sick has attracted a lot of attention. According to the report, some 35 companies and academic institutions are currently competing to develop a vaccine for C. neoformans, and at least four of them have already done animal testing of C. neoformans vaccine candidates. Much of this unprecedented pace of R&D can be attributed to China’s early efforts in sequencing the gene of the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). Earlier this year in January, China shared information about the virus’ genetic sequence, allowing research teams around the world to grow the live virus and study the way it invades human cells to make people sick. Another reason why vaccine development seems to be moving so quickly is that the virus that causes C pneumonia shares 80 to 90 percent of its genetic material with the virus that causes SARS, and both are made up of a single piece of ribonucleic acid (RNA). All vaccines work in a similar way, by delivering some or all of the pathogen to the body’s immune system in order to stimulate the body’s immune memory. Some of the current vaccine candidates build on other previously developed coronavirus vaccines. The Guardian also points out that while scientists in various countries are working fast to develop a vaccine, the process is destined to be fraught with obstacles. The most error-prone stage of the development process is the clinical or human trial stage. Clinical trials are usually conducted in three phases: the first involves dozens of healthy volunteers to test the safety of the vaccine by monitoring their adverse reactions; the second phase usually involves hundreds of people in areas affected by the disease to study the effectiveness of the vaccine; and the third phase involves thousands of people, again to study the effectiveness of the vaccine. This is a basic prerequisite for regulatory approval to produce a vaccine, but not all vaccine candidates make it through all three stages. Professor Annelies Wilder-Smith, a neo-emerging epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, says: “Like most vaccinologists, I don’t think a new crown vaccine will be developed in less than 18 months.” She believes that even in the absence of any surprises, 18 months is already very fast. In addition to the difficulty of developing a safe and effective vaccine, the challenge is how to produce the vaccine in large quantities. According to the report, many of the organizations developing the new crown vaccine simply do not have the capacity to mass produce this vaccine. Vaccine development is already a risky endeavor, and production facilities often need to be tailored to the specific vaccine, making it commercially unfeasible to scale up production without a confirmed benefit. At the same time, even when vaccines are developed and produced, there may be political and economic obstacles to mass vaccination. Jonathan Quick, a global health expert at Duke University, points out that viral biology and vaccine technology may be the limiting factors in the early stages, and the realization of a global immunization program would require the elimination of political and economic obstacles. The report further reads that the issue of deciding within a country who gets the vaccine has posed a challenge. And in the context of a new global crown pandemic, there is also competition between countries. Pandemics tend to hit hardest those countries with the most fragile and underfunded healthcare systems. There will also be an imbalance between demand and purchasing power when it comes to vaccines. “It may be that new crown outbreaks peak and decline before vaccines are available. A vaccine could save many lives, but until it is mass-produced, our best hope is to contain the spread of the disease as much as possible.” Professor Wilder-Smith said. Content source: penguin