'No guarantee' any coronavirus vaccine in development would work, warns WHO chief

While nations across the globe have continued to boost their scientific research to develop a safe and reliable COVID-19 vaccine, the World Health Organisation (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Tuesday warned that they have “no guarantee” that any vaccine that is currently in development would work against the deadly disease caused by the novel coronavirus. While noting that a greater number of candidates in testing would increase their chance, Tedros informed that there are at least 200 such potential vaccines in different phases of testing. However, he noted that the history of vaccine development has revealed that “some will fail and some will succeed”. 

“We have no guarantee that any vaccine in development will work. The more candidates we test, the higher the chance we will have for a safe and efficacious vaccine,” the WHO chief said during a virtual press briefing.

 “Almost 200 vaccine for Covid-19 are currently in clinical and preclinical testing. The history of vaccine development tells us some will fail and some will succeed,” Tedros added.

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51% of promised COVID-19 vaccine doses acquired

As the race for acquiring the potential doses of the vaccine has grown more intense, a recent report by an international anti-poverty nonprofit Oxfam revealed earlier that rich nations including the United States, UK and Japan that represent only 13 per cent of the world’s population have already acquired 51 per cent of the promised doses of COVID-19 vaccine candidates. 

Before the health and finance ministers of the G20 countries met to discuss the COVID-19 pandemic, the nonprofit organisation had alerted on the situation based on the agreements struck between the rich nations with the five leading vaccine candidates that are currently in the final stage of clinical trials according to the data collected by Airfinity. Moreover, it also found out that most companies do not have the ability to make enough COVID-19 vaccine does for all the people who require the same. 

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Image: AP