Forgot your password?
These range from this coming autumn to summer 2021, but depend upon the source of the drug – several are being developed at once worldwide and some are farther ahead than others.
According to the WHO, only between six and nine volunteers are involved in the most advanced stages of clinical trials, and around 30,000 or more are needed to complete this in order for widespread information about efficiency and safety to be scientifically valid.
This said, volunteers from Spain have been keeping the phones ringing off the hook, wanting to participate – although only a small selection of those who put their names down will be considered suitable, since they need to fall into set criteria: Those aged 18 to 55 with no health problems and no history of SARS-CoV-2, and the higher-risk over-65 age group.
The EU is expecting the first vaccine to be available by late November through the pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, and which is being developed at the University of Oxford – the Union already has a contract in place which will guarantee its 27 member States access to at least 300 million doses, of which Spain will get one in 10, and another 100 million will be used in the UK.
Meanwhile, the European Commission is in talks with another five laboratories in an attempt to close similar deals, given that with the present 300 million vaccines for the bloc, including 30 million for Spain, there will only be enough to inoculate two-thirds of the population of each – estimated to be 447 million and 47 million respectively.
Although Spain's health minister Salvador Illa says the first vaccines could reach the country by December, there will not be enough of them to administer to the entire population, so these will initially only be given to those at risk, such as the elderly, those with pre-existing health conditions, and the over-65s, followed by people who are in regular contact with any of these groups or with Covid-19 patients.
It will be several more months before mass distribution of any vaccine starts, according to the World Health Organisation – at least the middle of 2021.
“In real terms, we cannot expect to see widespread inoculation until the second half of next year,” says WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris.
“The various research groups are vaccinating people, but at the present moment, we don't have a clear enough sign that they have been able to guarantee a sufficient level of effectiveness and safety.”
Nevertheless, Ms Harris stresses that all possible resources are being poured into finding a safe vaccine, meaning there will 'probably end up being more than one available' and that they will be used on different population groups.
Pharmaceuticals' joint safety pledge: “We won't bow to political pressure”
Rival laboratories have signed a joint agreement pledging not to seek authorisation from any national government until they have been able to guarantee that the vaccine their teams are developing is totally safe, and that it works.
According to The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, the pharmaceutical giants involved in creating Covid-19 inoculations have promised, collectively, that none of them will bow to any political pressure from anywhere in the world, but will work at the pace they themselves consider to be correct to ensure there are no issues with the vaccines, that these will not involve side-effects that could be harmful, and that they know they will be effective before they hit the market.
Whilst all laboratories are ploughing every effort into getting a vaccine created as fast as possible, their signed pledge guarantees that this will not involve cutting corners that carry any risk at all of compromising safety and efficiency.
Pharmaceuticals which have signed the guarantee include the US-based laboratories Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson&Johnson, the UK-based GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and the French firm Sanofi.
“We believe this commitment on our part will help to ensure the public's confidence in Covid-19 vaccines...and in the rigorous scientific and regulatory processes through which they are evaluated,” the document says.
The pledge is aimed at assuaging those who mistrust the future inoculations based upon the short time it has taken to create them – normally, this would involve several years – and who suspect corner-cutting and a profit- or politically-motivated decision to get them on the market before they are ready.
'Not a race': All hands on deck needed
It's not about market leadership any more – pharmaceuticals are no longer trying to 'be the best' or make the most profits, but are working hard for the common good. French laboratory Sanofi (second picture) says it is working on a vaccine, using the same technology as for the 'flu jab, which is expected to retail at about €10.
“The price is not completely defined yet,” says chairman Olivier Bogillot.
“We're analysing production costs, but the idea is...for it to be as low as possible. We want to keep it to below €10.”
And if other pharmaceutical firms 'win the race' to get a vaccine on the shelves before Sanofi does, 'that's no problem', Bogillot stresses.
“You all know that millions, even billions of people are going to need to be vaccinated, so we need several providers to enable millions or billions of vaccines to be produced,” says Bogillot.
“It's no problem if rival laboratories get there before us. We'll get there soon after, and we'll still be in a position to administer hundreds of millions of doses.
“Each laboratory employs different technology – we're using one we have plenty of experience with, since it's the same as we use for creating our influenza vaccine. The difference is going to be how effective it is, and how well it's tolerated by the patient.
“We've ceased production in part of our plant [in Vitry-sur-Seine] and reassigned resources to producing the Covid vaccine.”
Sanofi is aiming to provide 300 million doses for Europe and 100 million for the USA.
The general consensus among the scientific community is that the inoculation will not be a one-off dose, but will need to be repeated, probably every year, like the 'flu vaccine.
'Suspicious'
This multi-corporation safety pledge is likely to prove necessary, given a recent survey by Spain's ministry for science and innovation, led by former astronaut Pedro Duque: Only 68% of those interviewed said they would have the vaccine 'straight away' if it were available.
The research, conducted by the Spanish Science and Technology Foundation (FECYT), part of Duque's ministry, sought the views of a stratified sample of 2,100 people living in Spain.
Of these, only 32% were 'totally in favour' of being vaccinated, if they were able to be, as soon as the drug were made available, whilst 36% were 'in favour' albeit with 'some doubts'.
For the remainder, 9% said they 'preferred not to say' what they thought in this respect, and 23% said they would be very 'suspicious' or 'doubtful' about being inoculated.
The results showed an interesting twist: The elderly and middle-aged were the ones with the fewest reservations and most keen to be vaccinated as soon as they could be, whereas those who were more 'suspicious' tended to be younger adults, with higher levels of education, and higher incomes.
Possibly, if anyone were to have reservations, it is better that it is this way around: The 32% who 'preferred not to answer' or who 'had serious doubts' are younger and healthier, meaning they are less likely to be higher-risk cases if they did catch the virus; and they had jobs which allowed them to work from home or were car-owners, meaning they were not so exposed to the risk of contagion through using public transport or being in the workplace.
As for the reasons for their lack of confidence, a third of them said they would not have the vaccine until at least the second or the third version was developed; 12.7% said they believed it could put their health at risk; and 5.8% said they simply did not believe they were in danger of catching the virus anyway.
With the pledge signed by the global pharmaceutical giants, though, it is hoped that these reservations may vanish in time – especially once those who are suspicious see that others who have been inoculated remain healthy and have sufficient antibodies to protect them from the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Eight in 10 Spaniards 'comply with Covid safety procedures'
The same survey sought to analyse whether people in Spain generally stick to the rules to avoid catching, or passing on, the virus – although being a self-report study, it is not scientific as 'desirability bias' may lead respondents to say what they believe the researchers wanted to hear.
One in 10 admitted they 'occasionally' failed to stick to the norms, and another one in 10 said they rarely followed them.
The research suggested that people's social and family circle had a heavy influence over whether or not they kept to the rules, showing once again how in-group conformity plays a huge rôle in individual habits and habit changes.
Respondents with chronic health conditions or who otherwise were not in good health turned out to be more likely to keep to the three main anti-virus recommendations, as did parents of both sexes with non-adult children, but age in general was not a determining factor: Equal percentages of younger people and older people were seen in the compliant and non-compliant groups.
Across the board, the study showed that perception of how effective or otherwise these measures were, and levels of concern about how the pandemic was evolving, had a direct and positive relationship with how far respondents kept to guidelines – those who felt they were not effective, or who were not worried about the virus, were more likely to flout them, and those who believed they were useful in prevention and were concerned about contagion rates were much more stringent about mask-wearing, social distancing and hand-washing.
VARIOUS charities and organisations – local and national – have set up channels for members of the public to help those affected by the storms and flash floods in the province of Valencia.
NEW legislation aiming to protect the public from telephone scams and cold-calling is under construction, and will attempt to attack it at source by tightening up on commercial use of customers' personal data.
GREATER practical and financial help for parents is on the cards now that a new 'family law' has passed its second reading in the Council of Ministers, with extended maternity and paternity pay, protected time...
BRITISH media outlets have lauded Spain's Queen Letizia's effortlessly-elegant dress sense over the past few days as she accompanies her husband King Felipe VI to London.