Covid-19 vaccine: unprecedented speed of development

The first vaccines against Covid-19 should be marketed in early 2021. An achievement when we know that the process of manufacturing a vaccine takes about ten years. This speed surprises and questions as to its harmlessness.

10 years. This is the average time required to manufacture a vaccine. A long and tedious process comprising research and testing phases intended to ensure the reliability of the final product. So, how to explain that in just 10 months, 11 vaccines against Covid-19 are already in the last stage before marketing? From the first wave of the global Covid-19 epidemic, researchers around the world embarked on a frantic race to find the antidote against SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for Covid-19. According to the WHO, as of November 12, 212 candidates are in the running and only 11 vaccines have reached phase 3. A symbol of hope for the French? Not so sure since half of the population does not want to be vaccinated against the coronavirus. However, the risk would not be health but financial. According to Inserm immunologist Cecil Czerkinsky interviewed by Sciences et Avenir, this is nothing less than a “feat” achieved thanks to “a historic mobilization” of laboratories, governments and health authorities.

Normally, the manufacture of a vaccine is broken down into several stages. After tests carried out on animals, three phases are carried out on humans. The first phase makes it possible to ensure the safety of the vaccine, the second to evaluate the response of the immune system in order to adapt the dosage. Finally, phase 3 consists of testing the vaccine on a large scale before it is marketed. In view of the global health emergency, the laboratories carried out these three phases simultaneously instead of doing them one after the other, as is usually the case. However, this does not mean that the safety criteria were less strict than usual, on the contrary! They were simply carried out concomitantly in order to save time.