Assuring Efficacy

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Anchor lead: Even when a vaccine against COVID-19 is developed, additional issues will need to be addressed, Elizabeth Tracey reports

At least five vaccine candidates have been chosen by the federal government to move forward into further testing and ramping up for production. Andrew Pekosz, a vaccine expert at Johns Hopkins, says one unknown that will only be revealed with time is how long antibodies in response to the vaccine will persist.

Pekosz: One of the things that will be important is the longevity of these responses. We also have to realize that we’re going from a population which is basically naïve to this virus, and trying to get people with a vaccine to be protected. Oftentimes that’s going to take multiple doses of a vaccine. I think the flu vaccine infrastructure is probably a good model to use, because we try to immunize 100 million people in a short period of time so there are things that we can learn from the way that we try to distribute and give flu vaccines, that might help with the Sars-CoV2 vaccine.  :34

At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.