COVID vaccine: First available vaccine may not be the best or ideal, says Bill Gates. Here's why

Over the course of the past few weeks, we have seen brilliant advancements from the world of vaccines. Even as authorities try to manage the surging number of cases, research groups like Oxford University, Moderna Inc, Pfizer-BioNTech and prototypes being modelled in China have announced a steadway with their vaccine trials. One of these is expected to launch by the end of 2020 or have a model ready for emergent use. Dr Anthony Fauci, too said that he expects tens of millions of doses by early 2021 to battle the surge.

However, any group launching the first-ever COVID vaccine does not get any kind of superiority. There can be a lot more vulnerabilities, loopholes, which may make it superficial to pin all our hopes on one vaccine. There are also probabilities that mass inoculation might require the use of more than one dose or one vaccine.

Now, philanthropist and billionaire, Bill Gates, who has often talked about immunization about making the vaccines available for all said that during the pandemic, the first available vaccine may not be our best bet of defence against the pandemic.

Speaking to a media agency, Bloomberg, Gates issued a warning by saying that even though vaccine development is happening at an accelerated pace, the first vaccine may not be the most effective one, and might take longer to develop.

“The initial vaccine, in terms of its effectiveness against sickness and transmission, won’t be ideal and may not have a long duration”

He also added that the first vaccines might only be a ‘stop-gap’ offer available primarily to the rich countries. In an earlier interview, the 64-year-old warned of vaccines being distributed to just wealthier nations.

Vaccine trials for a novel COVID vaccine are going on in a speedy way, which has never been seen before. Usually, to develop a vaccine, researchers need a lot more trials, participation from volunteers to root out any safety issues. Sometimes, vaccines can take upwards of a year or two to get approved for use. This timeline could make a vaccine for COVID-19 susceptible to issues, gaps, which are still being tested out.

Several countries, including the US and the UK, have already signed multi-million pacts with vaccine developers to reserve doses for the masses earlier. He also said that the problem of inequitable distribution could give rise to a deadlier pandemic.

“If we just let drugs and vaccines go to the highest bidder, instead of to the people and the places where they are most needed, we’ll have a longer, more unjust deadlier pandemic,”

Gates, through his philanthropic organization, has offered funding to leading vaccine developers, including AstraZeneca, which has partnered with Oxford University to develop the ADZ-1222 vaccine, currently in phase III of testing.

Some other groups the Gates Foundation has invested in include Johnson & Johnson (in phase I of testing) and Novavax, which delivered promising results from early-stage clinical trials recently. The philanthropist has also invested into the research behind a vaccine in the making in South Korea.

Over 150 vaccine groups are in contention to develop a vaccine to fight the SARS-COV-2 virus. Amongst these, over 5 have reached critical and large-scale phase III of trials.

While Gates' comments may not be entirely optimistic about having a vaccine ready to fight the crisis, the billionaire did attest to the fact that modern medical innovations, therapies and treatment strategies may be able to combat the virus and lower down the mortality rate.

“Innovation in diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines will get us largely out of this by the end of 2021."

He also added that waiting for the virus to die down a natural death or populationsachieving herd immunity is the only possible hope.

“The true end comes when between natural infection and a vaccine we have this herd immunity."