Corrona virus pandemic and the crisis in it's wake.

                                                                    

COVID-19 pandemic is still causing a crisis in infections, death, economic problems, and recession. So far, Coronavirus is the cause of 36 million infections and 1,000,000 million globally. 

The issues of COVID-19 have become so severe that it has found its way as one of the matters to debate in the US presidential election that always attracts global attention.  President Donald J. Trump has been facing massive criticism FOR dismissing the severity of COVID-19   before and after his recent contracting of the disease. He focuses on blaming China for causing and the disease and claims it should pay the price. Trump, who has also got infected while addressing the 75th UN General Assembly, virtually said: "we must hold accountable the nation that unleashed this plague to the world."

 He bases his argument that China only locked down its domestic flights without stopping international travel, so passengers spread the virus freely to other countries.  Trump has also been accusing the World Health Organization of allegedly colluding with china to declare that there was no spread of the disease by people without symptoms.

Amid the accusations, there is still no cure to eradicate coronavirus and cause healing. Patients take different types of medicine to treat the symptoms but not the infection. The fast spread is still a headache to the world. Pharmaceutical companies in the USA, Germany, and China and the University of Oxford are working hard to develop a vaccine. The purpose is to instruct the immune system to mount a stronger defense to Coronavirus and have fewer health consequences.

Currently, 150 vaccines are in development across the world. The hope is that some of the developers will develop one as soonest to solving the global crisis. The U.S is among the countries making massive at different laboratories to make it possible. The federal government contributes $10 billion to the Operation Warp Speed initiative to deliver 300 million safe, effective vaccines by January 2021. WHO is also coordinating different global efforts eyeing to deliver 2 billion doses before the end of 2021.

Challenges

Vaccines go through a lengthy clinical trial stage before researchers send them to regulators for approval. It might even take 10-15 minutes before a vaccine gets into the market. Another challenge is that a vaccine, even after approval, faces roadblocks of increasing production, distribution, determining the ideal population to vaccinate, and the cost.

However, there is light are some of the vaccine developers compressed the clinical process by the simultaneous running of SARS-CoV-2 trial phases. Director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci has said that "independent Safety Boards may end trials early."

The different types of vaccines under trial are in three different types.

1.            Vaccines using the whole coronavirus in a weakened or dead state

2.            Vaccines using part of the coronavirus as a fragment or protein and transfer it to a virus that is unlikely or incapable to cause disease

3.            Vaccines that deploy pieces of virus genetic material for human cells to make temporary coronavirus proteins necessary to stimulate immune systems

It might be early to know the vaccines that will be successful, but some are now in stage three or beyond. We are soon likely to get a vaccine that WHO and other regulating bodies will approve.

Author: Joe.