How New Models Of Vaccine Development For COVID-19 Have Helped Address An Epic Public Health Crisis

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine development and manufacturing have proceeded at a historically unprecedented pace. This speed may be accounted for by the unprecedented scale of resources being devoted to addressing COVID-19; an unusual intensity of cooperation, encompassing the public and private sectors and occurring both within and across national borders; and innovation with respect to both technologies (for example, new vaccine platforms) and processes (for example, vaccine clinical trials). In this article we describe and analyze how resources, cooperation, and innovation have contributed to the accelerated development of COVID-19 vaccines. Similar levels and types of public investment, models of cooperation, and harnessing of innovative processes and technologies could be applied to future epidemics and other global health challenges. P rogress toward the successful development and manufacture of effective coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines has taken place with remarkable speed. In early December 2020 several national regulatory authorities, including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), granted emergency or full authorization for a messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine developed by BioNTech and Pfizer, following review of results from Phase III clinical trials. These determinations were quickly followed by FDA Emergency Use Authorization for a second mRNA vaccine developed by Moderna and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the US. Top US public health officials have predicted that hundreds of millions of doses of multiple COVID-19 vaccines will be available to the US population by the second half of 2021. 1 The World Health Organization (WHO) has also suggested that widespread vaccination could take place internationally on a similar timeline, 2 although initial delivery has progressed slowly in a number of high-income settings, including the US. Considering the potential for further delay in remaining clinical trials, regulatory approval, manufacturing, and distribution, it is perhaps more reasonable to project that substantial global access to COVID-19 vaccination may be achieved sometime between 2022 and 2024. Competition among (wealthy) countries to secure sufficient supplies of vaccine for their populations with ample room for contingencies may also contribute to slowing global access. Even so, the rapidity with which both development and, likely, access to COVID-19 vaccines has occurred or is anticipated to occur is entirely without precedent. By comparison, development of the mumps vaccine, which holds the current speed record, took four years from isolation of the mumps virus to licensure in 1967. 3 Indeed, vaccine research and development, manufacturing, and delivery typically involves a long, deliberate process that takes a decade or more (see

YouTube Videos and Informed Decision-Making About COVID-19 Vaccination: Successive Sampling Study

“…Studying vaccinations historically shows the large time gaps that occur between scientific conceptualization, development, manufacturing, approval, and population-wide uptake. The current pandemic provides a remarkable example of unprecedented speed in developing, testing, and emergency use authorization of multiple vaccines [ 6 , 29 , 30 ], and bodes well for primary prevention of COVID-19.…”

The impact of armed conflict on the epidemiological situation of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Libya, Syria, and Yemen

“…The copyright holder has placed this this version posted February 16, 2021. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.02.12.21251654 doi: medRxiv preprint on the population. Therefore, urgent national and international strategies should be implemented to combat the pandemic and its upcoming consequences (26,27).…”

“…However, intervention programs should be based on the reality that full-blown transmission is ongoing in these countries, which do not have enough resources to respond to the impact coronavirus will have on the population. Therefore, urgent national and international strategies should be implemented to combat the pandemic and its upcoming consequences(26,27).…”

Reasons for Taking the COVID-19 Vaccine by US Social Media Users

“…Vaccination adherence is mainly affected by individual opinions and health literacy, which is potentially reflected in this survey by the participants' age (median age group: 35-44), level of education (higher education: 75.9%), confidence in the healthcare providers (79.2%), and interpretations of civic responsibility (81.6%). Health communication on social media must consider both the audience's interests and socio-demographic attributes [32]. Surprisingly, the decision-tree approach shows that the participants' age group is not a major discriminator in COVID-19 vaccination adherence.…”

“…For both groups above, the innovative technologies used in developing the COVID-19 vaccines [32] and that they will be free of charge motivated their adherence (52.5%.…”