Introduction
COVID–19, an infectious disease caused by the SARs-CoV-2 virus was at the forefront of people's’ minds in 2020. The virus ran rampant all over the world, putting many countries into complete lockdown. However, the Covid-19 vaccine put a stop to all of that. People vaccinated were less likely to catch and spread the virus. But how does this vaccine work, how was it developed so quickly and yet still so effective, and how was it received by the general population?
How vaccines work.
Before we understand how the COVID-19 vaccine was created, it is important to have a general understanding of how vaccines work. Vaccines are weakened or inactive parts of a virus or bacteria. The antigen (the protein layer on the outside of a pathogen) triggers an immune response, which makes the white blood cells produce antibodies. The World Health Organization describes antibodies as – “the soldiers in your body’s defense system. Each antibody, or soldier, in our system, is trained to recognize one specific antigen. We have thousands of different antibodies in our bodies. When the human body is exposed to an antigen for the first time, it takes time for the immune system to respond and produce antibodies specific to that antigen.” Antibodies then will remain in the body as memory cells destroy the pathogen before symptoms arise. The only difference between the vaccine and the actual pathogen is that the vaccine does not make the person sick.
Need for the COVID-19 vaccine
COVID-19 is an infectious disease, whose pathogen is transmitted through water droplets in the air - this includes when people talk, sneeze or cough. Therefore because of the ease of transport, the number of people who caught the virus grew. When people got infected, the symptoms were normally quite mild, however, people with underlying health problems such as diabetes or cardiovascular diseases, and elderly people, were more likely to develop a serious illness.
The National Office of Statistics reported that over 46000 people had died from COVID-19 by the 29th of May – 3 months into the UK having the virus. 4 out of 5 of these cases were from people aged 70 or over. Due to the huge volume of deaths, a suitable vaccine was required and it needed to be made fast.
How the vaccine was made
The first signs of Covid-19 were identified in December 2019 and the first vaccine was made in December 2020. Normally vaccines take 10 years to research, make and test. So how did they fit 10 years of work into only 12 months? The development of the vaccine in such a short space of time was mainly down to three important factors: previous knowledge, funding and worldwide collaboration.
Previous knowledge
Covid-19 (SARS-CoV-2) is part of a family of viruses called the Coronavirus family. They have a crown-like appearance with spiky proteins on the outside which allows them to bind to receptors on host cells leading to infection. This family of viruses has already caused problems twice in the last 20 years – Sars coronavirus in 2002 and Mers coronavirus in 2012. Because of these instances, scientists already had a huge head start in the research of this particular virus, as its family has already been extensively studied. Professor Andrew Pollard of Oxford University, one of the pioneers in the creation of the vaccine said, “If this had been a completely unknown virus, then we'd have been in a very different position.” It was almost lucky that the virus was part of this family that has already been so thoroughly researched, so making the vaccine took much less time.
Funding
Vaccine research is incredibly costly with the estimated cost of a vaccine to be in the range of $31-69 million. Due to the quickened research of the COVID-19 vaccine, this figure was expected to be even higher. It took many organizations from private to government to fund this task. The European Commission pledged $8 billion for research and in the United States, ‘Operation Warp Speed’ was created to roll out over 300 million doses by 2021. Because of the urgency and the direct effect that COVID-19 had on the population, as countries descended into lockdown, lots of money was very readily available to assist research facilities to produce a vaccine.
Worldwide Collaboration
Almost all of the major HICs contributed to their own vaccine research, due to the number of scientists working towards the same goal, the research and trial vaccines were made very quickly. For example, the scientists at Oxford partnered up with Pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca who put most other vaccines on hold, just to manufacture the COVID-19 vaccine. While manufacturing the vaccine, it went through rigorous trials to test the safety of it. Due to the urgency, they got over 30,000 volunteers to test it in phase three of the trials so they had as much data as any other vaccine trial.
Response to the Vaccine
Even after the release of the vaccine, scientists continue to collect data about the reactions to the vaccine. This added an extra layer of assurance about not only the effectiveness of the vaccine but also the safety of it. Smartphone-based apps and websites were introduced in which people were actively contacted after taking the vaccine, to be questioned about any side effects/problems they were having. However, this did not make the general public warm to the reception of this vaccine. For example in the UK, the government made it compulsory to get the vaccine for those working in a care home, this resulted in over 50,000 staff leaving their jobs. People were skeptical about the vaccine, mainly due to its rapid development. They believed that important safety steps had been missed.
Conclusion
Despite the difficulty of the vaccine creation and the devastation the virus had on people’s lives, because of the hard work of scientists around the world, the virus was able to be regulated and contained. The vaccine being the most important method in controlling COVID-19, along with social distancing and masks, saved thousands of lives. Even though people are still unsure about the vaccine, enough people have taken it to provide herd immunity, ensuring the safety of the people from this disease for good.