Current global efforts on COVID-19 research and development
Published: 03 Jul 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 thirteenth edition of the webinar was held on Thursday, 2 July.
Professor Peter Piot, Director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and a Handa Professor of Global Health, was invited to speak this week. Prof Piot’s work and experience in infectious diseases has been extensive and goes back a long way. As a clinician and microbiologist by training, he co-discovered the Ebola virus in Zaire in 1976 and has led pioneering research on HIV/AIDS, particularly in Africa. He currently holds various appointments such as Vice-Chair of the Global Health Innovation Technology Fund and Special Advisor to the President of the European Commission on research and innovation for COVID-19.
In a Question-and-Answer format, Professor Piot fielded questions from the viewers, while keeping to his theme about where we are now with global efforts on research and development, equitable access to new COVID-19 health technologies and what is needed as societies learn to live with the virus. Prof Piot explained that the current hostile geopolitical relationship between superpowers like the United States and China is not helping the COVID-19 research and development efforts. Prof Piot emphasised that it is not a zero-sum game and it is in the interest of nations, states, governments and independent agencies, to cooperate with one another so as to allow equitable access to drugs and vaccines so that no country and its citizens will be deprived of a vaccine when it becomes available. In handling such pandemics, better coordination that includes the exchange of information in real-time and ensuring manufacturing capabilities, will encourage a smoother process of allocation and distribution when the time comes.
When asked about the kinds of lessons the COVID-19 pandemic has thrown up, Prof Piot mentioned that the biggest failure of many countries is the lack of serious investment in preparedness. He deduced that during pandemics, countries that have robust public health systems in place and preparedness strategies are able to take early action and stop the transmission of the contagion.
Moving to the topic on the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine, its ability to prevent acquisition of the virus, interrupt its transmission or prevent death was called into question. Prof Piot said that a COVID-19 vaccine would be considered promising even if it had a 70% success rate. He continued to caution viewers about viewing the COVID-19 vaccine as a silver bullet and urged for effective management of expectations because of the anti-vaccine sentiments in societies and whether the new vaccine is a trusted biological material that can be safely administered to billions of people around the world still remains an unproven fact. Ultimately, Prof Piot emphasised that the continuation of certain safety measures like social distancing and wearing of masks is more dependable than hoping for a miracle cure.
WATCH: COVID-19 Updates from Singapore: Webinar 13 | Prof Peter Piot
Stay tuned to next week’s “COVID-19: Updates from Singapore” session on 9 July 2020, where guest speaker Dr Cornelia Chee, Head & Senior Consultant of the Department of Psychological Medicine at NUH and NUS Medicine, will speak about the mental health issues surrounding COVID-19. Register now at https://medicine.nus.edu.sg/cet/webinar/.
