Development of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic: What can we expect?
Published: 19 Jun 2020
The “COVID-19: Updates from Singapore” weekly webinar series is a forum for leading clinicians, scientists, public health officials and policy makers to share insights from their fields of study. The eleventh edition of the webinar was held on Thursday, 18 June.
Dr Marie-Paule Kieny, Director of Priority Research Programme on Antimicrobial Resistance at INSERM, a public scientific and technological institute under the French Ministries of Health and Research, was this week’s invited guest speaker. Previously, Dr Kieny also led the World Health Organisation (WHO) efforts in the areas of universal health coverage, health systems and innovation. For this week’s session, Dr Kieny gives her take on the development of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic and what can we expect.
Regarding the ongoing development of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, Dr Kieny said that not much is known about the natural history of COVID-19, its pathogenic manifestations and the reasons for its non-communicable disease symptoms. Since then, much work has gone into drug research and development, whether it is repurposing existing drugs or creating new drugs to accelerate the global effort of research and development of vaccines.
Dr Kieny was quick to emphasise that vaccines that provide lifelong protection are uncommon; it would be fortunate if the produced vaccine is moderately effective in reducing the severity of disease and death at this point and hopefully reduce transmission. She was quick to caution that the vaccine is not a magic bullet and elaborated that it might not work effectively for all age groups, especially the senior population. Other interventions, which includes increasing testing capabilities, isolating early, quarantining, ramping up contact tracing and providing early treatment for those infected works far better than hoping for a vaccine.
Speaking from her experience working with the WHO, Dr Kieny pointed out that countries and corporations have been stepping up to respond to COVID-19, in part as the world has gradually recognised the need to be expedient in addressing health crises. Dr Kieny emphasised that there is an urgent need to reinforce multilaterism, as it is important to avoid nationalistic tendencies and work together with the WHO to solve a global challenge.
WATCH: COVID-19 Updates from Singapore: Webinar 11 | Dr Marie-Paule Kieny
Stay tuned to the next “COVID-19: Updates from Singapore” session happening on 25 June 2020, where guest speaker Professor Heidi Larson, Founding Director of The Vaccine Confidence Project at the WHO Centre of Excellence, will be covering the topic “The State of Vaccine Confidence in the Age of Covid-19”. Register at https://medicine.nus.edu.sg/cet/webinar/.
