Every nation on the planet is awaiting Covid-19 vaccine. The political leaders and the governments are announcing that it is going to be given to the people as soon as possible. But "How soon is soon?" is the question.
Dr K I Varaprasada Reddy, the founder of Shantha Biotechnics has shared his views on the most talked about vaccine in the world.
He expressed his concern that as the competition is heavy among different companies to bring out the vaccine for Covid-19, the tenets like vigorous scientific evaluation and safety concerns may become a shortfall.
While addressing the participants of the TiE Global Summit 2020 on `Covid-19 Vaccine, Reddy said the haste to come out with a vaccine is unfortunate.
“It’s not even one year and we want a vaccine. ICMR was mentioning that by August 15 we will have a vaccine, which is not right. The government should be more responsible. With such announcements they are doing disservice to the public,” he said, giving an example that vaccine development takes years with the shortest time being four years taken by Merck’s mumps vaccine.
He also added, “In today’s emergency mode we can reduce the development time but not to the level of one year".
He implied that the world cannot put its people in danger by bringing out a vaccine in a hurry that may have serious side effects for not testing it as per the process. But can the world wait for a minimum of 4 years is another emotional question.