Opinion
N the Red
Vaccine efforts must be refocused Rush for COVID-19 treatment has lead to medical oversight Fletcher Haltom | haltofle000@hsestudents.org
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mid any disaster, a natural reaction is to seek a solution. For many, the perceived solution to the COVID-19 pandemic is when a vaccine is created, and patience is waning. Recently, for example, President Donald Trump made an ambitious statement to advisers, claiming that a potential treatment will arrive as soon as November. While this assurance of a vaccine sounds promising on the surface, there is an array of challenges and questions that lie beneath the initial promise. According to research collected by the New York Times, there are currently five versions of vaccines that are approved for early or limited use. While this is encouraging, it is important to weigh the potential downsides of expediting the creation process. Ted Ross, the director of the Center for Vaccines and Immunology at the University of Georgia, recently said the first vaccines “may not be the most effective.� Similarly, some experts worry that the technique many developers are using, delivering a protein called spike to alert the body’s immune system, is unproven and therefore unsafe to rely on completely. Even the most promising vaccines have potential pitfalls, especially related to production. RNA vaccines from companies such as Moderna and Pfizer have shown favorable results in early tests, but virologists worry about largescale production. Many companies and laboratories simply are not built to produce the sheer magnitude of vaccines that will be necessary around the world. Following the creation of a vaccine, there are widespread concerns related to distribution, particularly the costs associated with reliability, effectiveness and safety. In a deal with the U.S. government, Pfizer is requiring a cost of $19 per dose
of their largely experimental vaccines, and other companies have even higher cost requirements. These prices raise questions about the economic aspects of creating and distributing a vaccine. When a vaccine is developed, extensive distribution should be a necessity in the name of public health, not a luxury for only some to afford. Perhaps the most prevalent challenge with the creation of a vaccine is that many efforts are focused on the wrong goal. The development of a vaccine may not lead to the conclusion of the pandemic because the vaccines in development are targeting the wrong problem. The overwhelming majority currently in development, including leading approved vaccines such as Ad5 and Ad26, are focused on preventing COVID-19, the disease, not SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19. Preeminent vaccines serve to also block the transmission of the pathogen between people, not to simply prevent the disease the pathogen causes. While the overall focus on preventing COVID-19 can be attributed to mounting pressure to create a successful vaccine in record time, it makes the problem no less drastic. Vaccines that prevent COVID-19 will not necessarily prevent the transmission of SARS-CoV-2, which will only cause the pandemic to become lengthier. In order to remedy this issue, vaccine creation efforts need to be refocused to eliminate the transmission of SARSCoV-2, not just COVID-19. Vaccines need to be efficiently, safely and effectively created, and widespread distribution is a must. Without restructured vaccine research and production, the end of this disaster may be much further away than previously projected.
Graphic by Fletcher Haltom. Information from The New York Times.
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