What's the future of vaccines after COVID-19 crisis?

by experts

"We need to respond to the virus and mass production for underdeveloped countries," said Jerome Kim, secretary-general of the IVI

Park Man-sung, a professor at Korea University College of Medicine, said, "The seasonal trend will be repeated. Developing a flu+corona vaccine"

The rate of vaccinations against COVID-19 is increasing, especially in major developed countries.

 

Experts say we need to brace ourselves for the 'Corona 21' and 'Corona 22' pandemic.

 

As there is a high possibility that the pandemic will continue every year even if the current pandemic situation ends, the whole world should respond jointly.

 

At the "2021 Bio Korea" held at COEX in Seoul on the 10th, a meeting was held to discuss future development and production of corona vaccines under the theme of "development of next-generation vaccines to cope with future infectious diseases." Experts agreed that COVID will repeat its epidemic every year in the future, just like the flu.

 

Jerome Kim, Secretary-General of IVI

According to him, global vaccine production in the first half of this year is worth 7.2 billion doses.

 

Production is expected to increase to 12.6 billion doses in the second half of this year.

 

However, if limited to vaccines officially recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO), the total number of doses in the first and second half of the year will be only 8.8 billion doses.

 

Given that most vaccines are immunized with two doses, they are not sufficient to supply the world's population.

 

The size is expected to increase to 1.12 million doses after next year, but there is still insufficient supply to meet global demand.

 

"The COVID-19 virus epidemic will end in about a year and a half," he said.

 

"Currently, global production capacity does not provide enough vaccines to underdeveloped countries.

 

The CEPI has set a goal of supplying vaccines to 30% of the world's population by the end of this year, but vaccine producers around the world need to make efforts to ensure that they can be supplied more smoothly." "GSK, Merck, Takeda, and Daiichi Sankyo have not yet produced a vaccine for COVID" he said.

 

Their development and mass production are required.

 

"Various mutant viruses are reported," he added.

 

"There must be mutant viruses that have not been reported yet," he said.

 

"We also need to develop a Trivalent and Quadrivate vaccine to respond to them." Park Man-sung, a professor at Korea University of Medicine, also said, "We should prepare for the mutant virus epidemic." "Fortunately, COVID does not mutate as often as the influenza virus," he said.

 

"However, numerous mutations have already been reported before the vaccine came out, and as the vaccination rate increases, COVID will adapt to it and change itself." He said, "Personally, I think there is a high possibility that COVID will evolve into a seasonal virus." "We don't know how long the immunogenicity of the vaccine we're currently inoculating will be maintained," he said.

 

"We need to develop a new vaccine considering this situation."

Variation virus reported before the start of COVID-19 vaccine.

 

Even after the inoculation began, mutated viruses have been reported in Britain, South Africa, and India.

 

Professor Park Man-sung predicted that more mutations will occur in the future and become a seasonal virus

He also introduced plans to develop vaccines to prevent COVID and influenza at the same time.

 

Since there is a high possibility that the two viruses will be prevalent simultaneously in winter, it is expected that demand will be very high if a vaccine is developed to prevent them at once.

 

"Our laboratory is currently developing vaccines to prevent COVID and influenza viruses at the same time," said Professor Park Man-sung.

 

"When initial development is completed, we will share technology with vaccine producers."