Scientists all over the world are working to develop a vaccine that will protect millions against COVID-19 and now is a good time to think about how long it will take to develop the vaccine. On April 17, Business Secretary, Alok Sharma had announced that a new Vaccine Taskforce has been set up in the UK. This was done to accelerate the development and manufacturing of the vaccine at a higher scale once it is ready.
Sarah Gilbert, professor of vaccinology at Oxford University has stated that the vaccine could be available for use by the general public in autumn. However, she further stated that there is always an unknown and also the scientists can never be sure whether the vaccine is going to work. All around the world, there are potential COVID-19 vaccines under development and some countries have even started the trial human testing process like in the US.
However, the road from developing to widely-distribution could be a long one. Some experts and scientists comment that the world won’t be seeing an effective vaccine for at least 12-18 months. Another major concern that the experts have put forward is that even if the vaccine is developed and mass-produced, it should be first made available to the most vulnerable ones and then the rest.
This led the scientists to another concern that the average time to develop a vaccine is 10-15 years and now the scientists have to cut down this timeline to 12-18 months.
Hence, one can say that there are three major hurdles that scientists have to overcome to develop the vaccine against coronavirus.
