Covid vaccine faces rejection even before it reaches market

And, as US pharma giant Pfizer comes out with an “over 90 per cent effective” Covid-19 vaccine, former vice president of Pfizer, Dr Michael Yeadon, has asserted that the vaccine may not be required at all. 

“There is absolutely no need for vaccines to extinguish the pandemic. I've never heard such nonsense talked about vaccines,” according to a report in lifesitenews.com.

"You do not vaccinate people who aren't at risk from the disease. You also don't set about planning to vaccinate millions of fit and healthy people with a vaccine that hasn't been extensively tested on human subjects," the report quoted Yeadon as saying.

His comments come at the end of a comprehensive criticism of the Scientific Advisor Group for Emergencies (SAGE), a government agency of the UK tasked with advising the government in emergencies.

SAGE has an important role in determining public lockdown policies in the UK, including those recently implemented, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, according to lifesitenews.com.

Yeadon says SAGE has erred its presuppositions which cause the overall conclusions to go radically awry leading to the "torturing the population for the last seven months or so."

SAGE, however, claims that everyone was susceptible. 

“I think this is literally unbelievable. They have ignored all precedent in the field of immunological memory against respiratory viruses," he said.

"They have either not seen or disregarded excellent quality work from numerous, world-leading clinical immunologists which show that around 30 per cent of the population had prior immunity," Yeadon added.

Last Friday, Pfizer had announced it is seeking emergency approval from US regulators for its Covid-19 vaccine, which has shown 95 per cent efficacy in a totality of two data sets released in the last 10 days.

Pfizer is not alone, there are many others in the pipeline ready with fast-tracked vaccines, including AstaZeneca, BioNTech, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Moderna, Novavax, and Sanofi besides Indian, Chinese and Russian companies.

India in fact, has licensed seven pharma majors, including Bharat Biotech, Serum Institute, Zydus Cadila, Panacea Biotec, Indian Immunologicals, Mynvax and Biological E to work on the coronavirus vaccine.

But, with clinical trials going awry in the rush to get results, an effective and dependable vaccine may take more time to become readily available.

And, as things stand, by the time effective vaccines become widely available, there will not be any need to prevent the spread of Corona virus as might already have subsided across the world. 

As Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro pointed out, Brazilians will not be required to be vaccinated when a coronavirus vaccine becomes widely available.

He also said, personally, he will not take a coronavirus vaccine, while expressing skepticism toward coronavirus vaccination programme. “I’m telling you, I’m not going to take it. It’s my right,” he said in statements posted live over social media platforms.

In October, he joked on Twitter that vaccination would be required only for his dog.

Brazil has the second highest number of corona virus deaths in the world, and the third highest number of corona virus cases.

India, the world’s largest vaccine maker, has taken on itself the job of producing for the world. According to reports, India’s Dr Reddy’s Labs will be manufacturing 100 million doses of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine.

Similarly, Serum Institute of India (SII) will be manufacturing Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, while Cadila Healthcare has initiated phase 2 clinical trial of its indigenously developed vaccine, ZyCoV-D.

Chinese pharmaceutical giant Sinopharm on Tuesday applied to the country's health regulators to launch its Covid-19 vaccines for public use, based on multiple news reports.

However, close to a million people have already been injected with experimental shots since the Chinese government authorised the vaccines for emergency use in July.

Sinopharm was earlier reported to have been testing the safety and efficacy of its two inactivated coronavirus vaccines. However, it is yet to release any public data regarding the vaccines' efficacy in their phase-three trials.

Meanwhile, a Bloomberg report hinted at the possibility of a black market emerging for vaccines that are yet to prove efficacy in clinical trials or those that have not made it to the market.

The report cited sources as saying that some people are seeking out the vaccine, which is meant for frontline workers and that a shot of the double-dose Sinopharm vaccine, that is yet to prove itself, is anywhere over $90.

"You just transfer him the money via Alipay, but he won't tell you the details because apparently it's black market," the report cited one anonymous source as saying.

Sinopharm's application seeking permission to officially launch its vaccines is still pending approval.

AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford had announced that their two-dose vaccine could be up to 90 per cent effective, but an error in the trial has cast doubt on its efficacy rate. AstraZeneca's CEO Pascal Soriot on Thursday said the company will likely retest its Covid-19 vaccine.