We Are in the Endgame Now

By Woo Jiwoo

Have you ever watched the movie “Avengers: Endgame”? It’s about the Avengers fighting with Thanos, the villain, and there is only one way in 14 million for Avengers to win. Likewise, we are at war against COVID-19 now and I think vaccine is our only way to survive.

The whole world has been suffering from a highly contagious infectious disease called COVID-19 since the beginning of this year. This coronavirus usually causes a mild respiratory illness like influenza and it also can lead to a severe respiratory condition that requires hospitalization. It is usually compared with the other coronavirus, Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) that COVID-19 is less fatal but much more infectious. Three of them have something in common that all of them still have no treatment and vaccine. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the novel coronavirus outbreak a pandemic on March 12, which means the worldwide spread of a new disease. It was the first to declare pandemic since the H1N1 flu in 2009, which killed hundreds of thousands globally. Since there are still more than 200,000 new cases reported every day, people are wondering when we can get the vaccine of the virus.

There are about 165 vaccines developing against the COVID-19 all around the world, and 31 vaccines have already started human trials. It took 4 years to make a vaccine which was the fastest and it typically takes years to produce a safe and effective vaccine, but scientist all around the world are racing to produce the coronavirus vaccine; therefore, it is estimated to be available by the end of this year. There are several stages to produce a vaccine: preclinical testing, phase 1 safety trials, phase 2 expanded trials and phrase 3 efficacy trials. Scientists give the vaccine to animals first to see if it produces an immune response and then give it to from small number of people to hundreds and thousands of people. Researchers combined phases to accelerate the pace of development, which means they tested for the first time directly on hundreds of people. 

There are 6 candidates in the last stage of human trials before approval: three from China, one from the UK and two from the US. For instance, Moderna, a Massachusetts-based biotechnology company, is developing its mRNA-1273 vaccine, which kicked off Phase 1 the first. It will be tested its efficacy and safety in 30,000 people in different cities around the United States. 

Instead of running all of 3 clinical trials by the book, Russia government announced that the vaccine developed by the Moscow-based Gamaleya Institute Fund named Sputnik V approved for public use the first time in the world. President Vladimir Putin says his own daughter has already received it and Russia claims that volunteers in the Phase 1 and 2 trials appeared safe and triggered an immune response after taking the vaccine, and there was no unforeseen or unwanted side effects. However, the scientific data of the vaccine is not released and the fact that the vaccine did not even begin the Phase 3 stage made experts skeptical about the unprecedented speed of the vaccine’s approval. Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte appeared keen to try Sputnik V publicly and is willing to volunteer receiving it himself. 

The unexpected approval of Russian vaccine made people doubtful about the safety and efficacy of the vaccine. According to Jerome Kim, the director general of the International Vaccine Institute, shortening the timeline of making vaccine has its pros and cons. If a premium is placed on speed, an effective vaccine may be approved sooner, but it contains risk. Vaccines are given to healthy people, so we cannot compromise on safety. “The first packages of the medical vaccine… will be received within the next two weeks, primarily for doctors,” Said Russia’s Health Minister Mikhail Murashko. In my opinion, I wouldn’t try Sputnik V on my body since it has not been sufficiently tested. The most important thing isn’t about being the first one, it’s about having a safe one. I hope everyone in the world can get the safe and effective vaccine equally as soon as possible that we can get to meet our families and friends without anxiety.