Rushing for Coronavirus Vaccine Will Create More Severe Consequences Than We Anticipate
In the past, there have been instances where early delivery of vaccines has been a colossal failure.
The entire world is agitated by the COVID-19 pandemic. For a long time, people have been unable to breathe in the fresh air. The world’s economy is crashing down. The burden of billions of dollars of debt on governments is mounting. Unemployment and poverty are on the exponential rise throughout the world. Everyone is expecting that a vaccine will soon bring to an end to the darkness of this pandemic.
Researchers across the world are striving to create the vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 — as a result — more than 170 candidate vaccines are currently being tracked by the World Health Organisation (WHO). As of August 28, thirty-three vaccine candidates are currently in clinical evaluation, of which seven candidates are already in trial phase 3.
In addition to the end of the pandemic, there are other significant interests in this competition for vaccine development. The country that will be the first to introduce a successful vaccine would succeed not only economically but also in foreign affairs. There is therefore a tremendous race all over the world to develop vaccines against this virus.
On 11 August, Russia approved a vaccine named Sputnik V for public use, which only passed a two-month small-scale trial phase — without any large-scale trial. China, meanwhile, has approved the use of a vaccine for volunteers whose human trials are still underway. According to a report of Financial Times, US President Donald Trump is considering to bypass some of the usual vaccine development procedures in order to make the vaccine available to the public during the November election. Experts from different countries have expressed concern over these decisions. According to them, too many shortcuts are being taken to bring the coronavirus vaccine to the market quickly.
Danny Altmann — a professor at Imperial College London — says that there is no room to compromise on safety issues. He also states “The [COVID-19] vaccines will be given to billions in the biggest ever medical endeavor on planet Earth. This needs to be effective and safe. Imagine even one in 1000 serious adverse events in a vaccine given to a billion people.”
If the COVID-19 vaccine does the slightest harm to the public due to a lack of safety measures, then not only the coronavirus vaccine, but any mass vaccination effort worldwide will lose public trust. Moreover, the global vaccine hesitancy and anti-vaccine movement are gaining momentum day by day. Vaccine refusal is one of the top ten global threats reported by the WHO in 2019. Due to this pandemic, people’s minds are now very vulnerable. They become panicked about anything.
The root cause for distrust on vaccinations and vaccine-related individuals (such as doctors, researchers) is the spread of misinformation via social media and skeptical groups. There is a widely held belief that vaccines have adverse side effects, such as autism, allergies, etc. Vaccine opponents also often accuse physicians and scientists that they promote vaccination for financial and political benefits. Therefore, by evading the established safety standard or without proper evaluation, a vaccine should not be launched with hustling that would once again question the vaccination efforts of researchers and physicians.
Here I’ve listed some of the vaccine-related incidents that have occurred in the past. This web page of the CDC contains more detailed information.
Cutter Incident (1955)
In 1955 Jonas Salk developed an inactivated polio vaccine, which led to a massive public-health experiment involving millions of school children. Five pharmaceutical companies were given Salk’s formula for vaccine production without any supervision. One such company was Cutter Laboratories, whose vaccines were contaminated with live poliovirus. Many of the 70,000 children who received the vaccine developed muscle weakness, 164 were permanently paralyzed and 10 died. Although the vaccine was rigorously tested for many years prior to large scale trials, a little carelessness caused so much damage.
Swine Flu and Guillain-Barré Syndrome (1976)
Out of concern that the 1918 strain of swine flu was re-emerging, the US government decided in 1976 to carry out a mass vaccination. But the government’s such extensive effort was virtually thwarted. This is because a manufacturer produced incorrect strains and those who took the vaccine did not have an immune response, rather they did experience adverse reactions such as high fever and sore arms. In some cases, many vaccine recipients suffered from Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS). Later in 2003, a scientific study by the Institute of Medicine ( IOM) found that people who received the 1976 flu shot had an increased chance of developing GBS. Thus once again, both the scientific credibility and the public trust had been damaged by the demand for rapid vaccine delivery.
Rotavirus Vaccine and Intussusception (1998–1999)
In 1997, the FDA approved a vaccine called RotaSheild to prevent rotavirus gastroenteritis. However, within a few days after vaccination, certain infants experienced intussusception (an uncommon form of intestinal obstruction that happens when the intestine folds in itself). The CDC immediately recommended to discontinue the use of the vaccine, and an investigation revealed that the RotaShield vaccine causes intussusception in children under 12 months of age. The vaccine was later withdrawn from the market in October 1999 as per the instructions of the advisory committee.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused intense anxiety and uncertainty around the world. So immense public and political pressure is forming to develop an effective vaccine very quickly. But we must learn from the past so that this pressure does not deviate us from rigorous scientific norms. To get an effective, successful, adverse side effects free SARS-CoV-2 vaccine we must follow proper scientific standards.
“The Russia vaccine approval was definitely rushed,” says Ayfer Ali — a professor at the University of Warwick, UK. “It had only been tested on 38 people.” However, she added that certain research teams are following the standard vaccine production protocol. Let us expect that some final vaccines will be available by the end of this year.
Now you might wonder how the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine will arrive so quickly when it normally takes years to get a final vaccine. The answer is - a collective effort. As this pandemic began, thousands of scientists around the world left what they were doing and joined along to develop coronavirus vaccines.
Scientific innovations have also changed significantly in the last few decades. For example, DNA sequencing is now much faster and cheaper. As a result, within a week of the first case detection, on January 10, Chinese scientists were able to make the complete coronavirus sequence public. In addition, previous researches on the coronavirus SARS and MERS have helped scientists to learn about the genome of the SARS-CoV-2, so it was possible to start the research on a vaccine immediately.
And therefore we can expect that while we’re going to get the vaccine faster than usual, the past events won’t happen again. Besides, various countries are also actively tracking the safety policies for vaccine production. As a result of advancement in communication technology, the outcomes of various stages of clinical trials are now known to all, as well as various research groups can collaboratively share their insights on vaccines.
The public and the science world are both desperately waiting for a safe and reliable vaccine that would put an end to the COVID-19 pandemic. The consequences of the damage that SARS-CoV-2 is doing to all aspects of our lives will continue for many years to come. But none of this should displace the subtle processes of a vaccine test. We must keep it in mind that the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine is an opportunity to gain public trust in the scientific community and vaccination. Minimal negligence in the whole process of vaccine development and testing will not only create adverse reactions in the bodies of countless people but will also fuel the vaccine hesitancy and anti-vaccine movement. And on that case, consequences will be more devastating and long-lasting.
