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Yes, vaccines took 10 years to develop in the past. COVID vaccines took 10 months, here’s why…

I still see lots of comments about the vaccines being rushed – reasonable and valid comments – so I really hope you read the whole article and share it with people who are still skeptical about the speed of vaccine development for COVID-19. 

Development for most of the vaccines we currently have took several years to several decades. Here’s a summary of the vaccines we have and when each respective vaccine became available. 

I summarized this during the early months of the pandemic to give people a sense of how fast (or slow) the different vaccines for different pathogens were developed considering the different “era” these germs were discovered (different levels of science and technology). 

The keyword I have been repeating is different. We are also in a different situation now – we are in the midst of a once-in-a-century pandemic that has now infected over 100 million and killed over two million people worldwide.  

The COVID vaccines were developed in just about 10 months yet there were no “cutting corners” in the design, testing, and manufacturing of the vaccines – how did that happen?

1. Data from other coronaviruses. SARS-CoV-2 is NOT the first coronavirus discovered. Scientists have been studying coronaviruses for over 50 years starting from the non-pandemic human coronaviruses including types 229E, NL63, OC43, and HKU1. All of these coronaviruses usually cause mild to moderate upper-respiratory tract illnesses, like the common cold. Then we had SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) in 2002 and MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome) in 2012. Scientists had existing data on the structure, genome, and life cycle of coronaviruses.

2. Global collaboration and data sharing. Chinese researchers quickly sequenced the virus and shared their data with other scientists early in January 2020. Once the genomic sequence became available to the global scientific community, vaccine developers started creating SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidates. Many labs working on other pathogens stopped their research to focus on COVID-19. There has never been a single time in human history where thousands of physicians and scientists all over the globe worked on (and are still working on) a single disease – not even with HIV/AIDS.  

3Funding for COVID-19 vaccine research. Vaccine development is expensive – initial trials for a typical vaccine are in the range of 31 – 68 million USD. Large scale trials are more expensive. But because we are in a pandemic, the US, EU, UK and many other developed countries together with philanthropic organizations and funding agencies pledged billions of dollars to fund research. Yes, billions! In a non-pandemic situation, developers need to apply for funding to start new studies or continue existing ones. Even in private companies doing vaccine development, projects may be postponed or completely stopped because of competing priorities or lack of funding.

4. Advancements in science and technology. The vaccine platforms that enabled the first COVID-19 vaccines to reach the finish line used the mRNA technology (i.e. Pfizer BioNTech vaccine, Moderna vaccine). Yes, these are the first mRNA vaccines licensed but scientists have been studying this technology since the 1990s. So the vaccine is new, the technology is not new. The same goes for the viral vector vaccines (i.e. Oxford Astra Zeneca vaccine). There are viral vector vaccines already licensed and used. 

5. There is COVID-19 community transmission almost everywhere. Apart from Taiwan and New Zealand, COVID-19 community transmission still happens. Countries like the US, UK, Russia, Mexico, France, India, Indonesia, Portugal, Italy record over 10,000 new cases every day. When doing efficacy trials for vaccines, one group is given the vaccine candidate, the other group gets a placebo or an existing vaccine. Then they are monitored for months until the clinical trial reaches a pre-specified number of cases (for example 200). Then the data will be analyzed to calculate vaccine efficacy by looking at how many of the 200 infected were vaccinated and unvaccinated. So if there is a widespread transmission, the clinical trial reaches the required number of cases faster. If there is no community transmission, you need to wait for a year or more before a study can be completed.   

So the next time someone tells you “COVID vaccines were rushed,” you can stop rolling your eyeballs, take a deep breath and explain the five reasons mentioned above, or just share this. Stay safe!*

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Dr. Melvin Sanicas (@Vaccinologist) is a physician-scientist specializing in vaccines, infectious diseases, and global health.

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