Once A Vaccine Is Approved, What Comes Next?
News outlets examine the obstacles that could complicate efforts to inoculate the globe from COVID-19.
WBUR:
General Public Won't Receive COVID-19 Vaccine Until Mid To Late 2021, Doctor Predicts
When a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine becomes available, it's a complex process to distribute it and make it accessible to everyone who needs it. Distributing a vaccine will require scaling up manufacturing, logistically planning storage and prioritizing who gets it first, says Dr. William Moss, executive director of the International Vaccine Access Center at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. (Hobson and Hagan, 9/14)
CNN:
Why A Covid-19 Vaccine Will Not Stop The Coronavirus Pandemic Right Away
"Having" a vaccine does not mean having a vaccine approved, distributed and into the arms of more than 300 million Americans. First, any vaccine must either be approved or authorized by the US Food and Drug Administration. That's a process that under normal circumstances can take months or years. While the FDA has promised a speedier process for a Covid-19 vaccine, it must still go through a committee known as the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, or VRBAC. (Fox, 9/15)
In other vaccine news —
NBC News:
Poll: Majority Of Adults Don't Trust Trump's Comments On Covid-19 Vaccine
A majority of American adults don't trust what President Donald Trump has said about a coronavirus vaccine, according to new data from the NBC News|SurveyMonkey Weekly Tracking poll, as the share of people who say they would get a government-approved vaccine has decreased. Fifty-two percent of adults say they don't trust the president's vaccine comments, while just 26 percent say they do. Twenty percent say they are "not aware" whether they trust what the president has said about a vaccine. (Kamisar and Holzberg, 9/15)
Kaiser Health News:
NIH ‘Very Concerned’ About Serious Side Effect In Coronavirus Vaccine Trial
The Food and Drug Administration is weighing whether to follow British regulators in resuming a coronavirus vaccine trial that was halted when a participant suffered spinal cord damage, even as the National Institutes of Health has launched an investigation of the case. “The highest levels of NIH are very concerned,” said Dr. Avindra Nath, intramural clinical director and a leader of viral research at the National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke, an NIH division. “Everyone’s hopes are on a vaccine, and if you have a major complication the whole thing could get derailed.” (Allen and Szabo, 9/14)
In global vaccine news —
Reuters:
China Coronavirus Vaccine May Be Ready For Public In November: Official
Coronavirus vaccines being developed in China may be ready for use by the general public as early as November, an official with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said.China has four COVID-19 vaccines in the final stage of clinical trials. At least three of those have already been offered to essential workers under an emergency use programme launched in July. (9/14)
Nature:
Researchers Highlight ‘Questionable’ Data In Russian Coronavirus Vaccine Trial Results
A group of researchers have expressed concern about repetitive patterns of data in a paper describing early-phase clinical trials of Russia’s coronavirus vaccine — the first jab worldwide to be approved for widespread use. In an open letter in The Lancet, which published the trial results1 this month, the researchers highlight values that seem to be duplicated, and warn that the paper presents its results only as box plots without providing a detailed breakdown of the data on which they are based. “While the research described in this study is potentially significant, the presentation of the data raises several concerns which require access to the original data to fully investigate”, the letter says. It has so far been signed by 38 scientists. (Abbott, 9/15)
AP:
UK Tests If COVID-19 Vaccines Might Work Better Inhaled
British scientists are beginning a small study comparing how two experimental coronavirus vaccines might work when they are inhaled by people instead of being injected. In a statement on Monday, researchers at Imperial College London and Oxford University said a trial involving 30 people would test vaccines developed by both institutions when participants inhale the droplets in their mouths, which would directly target their respiratory systems. (9/14)
