Just eight months into the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers and pharmaceutical companies worldwide are engaged in a global race to develop a vaccine that may potentially eradicate the deadly virus.
According to the latest report from the World Health Organization, currently, 31 vaccines are in clinical evaluation, with another 142 candidate vaccines in preclinical evaluation.
While the rapid advancement through the rigorous stages of clinical trials has been impressive, experts have voiced concerns over the safety and efficacy of these vaccines.
Dean, Professor Teo Yik Ying said that there is the risk of side effects, including those that may potentially be life-threatening, or actually fail to protect the people against future COVID-19 infections.
“While these may appear to impact only the countries that distribute the unproven vaccine, the worry is one of global vaccine hesitancy and vaccine confidence.”
Yet, there are many hurdles to cross even if the first wave of vaccines is proven to be effective.
This ranges from production and manufacturing capacities to financing and finally, distribution.
Prof Teo believes the world is conscious that the global distribution of vaccines will realistically happen only next year.
“Even if there is an available supply of safe and effective vaccine for distribution at the end of 2020, it will be to selected groups of people, perhaps even in a small number of countries,” said Prof Teo. “We do not think that there will be the necessary five billion doses of vaccines available for widespread distribution worldwide by the end of this year.”
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