In the disturbing scenario of human-to-mink-to-human COVID-19 transmission, the virus may mutate in mink prior to re-infecting people. That possibility makes vaccine design even more crucial.
Any COVID-19 vaccine is likely to be given first to higher risk groups before it is given to children. But we still need vaccines that are safe and effective for them too.
Experts from across The Conversation look at how COVID-19 vaccines will work, how they’re being tested and manufactured, and what challenges there will be to rolling them out.
Jessica C Lai, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington
New Zealand has entered several international agreements to access COVID-19 vaccines, but it should also amend domestic patent law and regulatory processes to prevent delays and costly negotiations.
Samples from volunteers are handled in the laboratory at Imperial College in London, on July 30, 2020. Imperial College is working on the development of a COVID-19 vaccine.
(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
With lives depending on a vaccine, trust in Canada’s COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force is crucial. Members of the task force need to make any industry links or potential conflicts of interest publicly clear.
A worker inspects vials of a SARS CoV-2 vaccine for COVID-19 produced by SinoVac at its factory in Beijing on Sept. 24, 2020.
(AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
Our first exposure to a pathogen, either naturally or via vaccination, can affect how our immune system responds in the future to the same or similar pathogens.
A group of 28 vaccine researchers said we might have a vaccine by late-2021, though it could take until well into 2022.
Research technician Leon McFarlane handles a blood sample from a volunteer in the laboratory at Imperial College in London, where a COVID-19 vaccine is under development, on July 30, 2020.
(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
With $1 billion in advance purchase agreements for COVID-19 vaccines, Canada has joined the vaccine nationalists: rich countries buying up more than half the global short-term supply of vaccine.
A lab technician holds a vial of a COVID-19 vaccine candidate during testing at the Chula Vaccine Research Center, run by Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand on May 25, 2020.
(AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)
Will a vaccine for COVID-19 be safe? Animal testing, human clinical trials and post-approval surveillance give us good grounds to believe that a future approved vaccine will work and be safe.
A patient receives a shot in a clinical trial for a COVID-19 vaccine.
AP Photo/Ted S. Warren
Our best shot at ending the pandemic is by achieving herd immunity through widespread use of a vaccine. But that won’t happen unless people believe it’s safe.
A researcher working on the University of Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine in Buenos Aires.
EPA-EFE
Church leaders have raised concerns over a COVID-19 vaccine produced using cells derived from aborted foetuses. But the Vatican has already ruled such vaccines ‘morally separate’ from the abortions.
The vaccine hasn’t completed phase 3 trials, so we can’t be sure it will be safe and effective for all. The Australian government’s deal is contingent on these trials being successful.
A two-dose coronavirus vaccine would mean we need to produce 12-15 billion doses. This is roughly twice the world’s current total vaccine manufacturing capacity.
A scientist holding a coronavirus vaccine at the Nikolai Gamaleya National Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology in Moscow, Russia.
Alexander Zemlianichenko Jr/Russian Direct Investment Fund/AP/AAP
The race is on to develop a vaccine for the COVID-19 coronavirus. Australian researchers are leading several major clinical trials that might help bring an end to the deadly disease.
Vaccinologists have not focused their research on tailoring vaccines to induce robust immune responses in the elderly.
(Shutterstock)
Immunosenescence — the decline of immune system function with age — means that vaccines are not as effective in older adults, the demographic most susceptible to many diseases, including COVID-19.