How have they got a vaccine so quickly

[GreatestShowUnicorn]

How when they’ve never successfully managed to get a vaccine before for other viruses SARS, hiv, etc have they managed to churn one out quickly now? I got get the whole conspiracy side of thing this is a genuine question.

Ok, as you say this is a genuine question, and the comparison between HIV is continually being made...

HIV and coronavirus are 2 totally different types of virus. HIV integrates itself into the immune system and becomes part of our DNA. Even though there is very effective treatment to keep it suppressed to undetectable levels the difficulties are in reaching dormant virus in the viral reservoirs. Finding out where that is and getting at it without killing us off in the process is incredibly difficult.

HIV also mutates much faster. Cure research is ongoing and several different strategies are being explored.

If you want to know more, see here: www.aidsmap.com/about-hiv/search-hiv-cure

there are also more people signing up for these trails which wi;l accelerate the speed

It's cos this disease doesn't just kill poor black people

• money thrown at it
• massive publicity so lots of volunteers for human trials
• ongoing pandemic so applications and processes prioritised over other work

hiv, etc

Originally because of the prevailing view that HIV only affects teh gayz, and working on a cure attracts criticism (historically). Nowadays HIV mainly affects brown people in poor places, so who really cares?*

HIV is also very hard to transmit compared to Coronavirus. It requires a reasonable amount of bodily fluid exchange, not just a cough.

*many people, obviously, but that is the view of those who control the funding.

As PPs have said, by throwing money and resources AND by getting lucky in that the antigen that was selected has, in some cases, given rise to a suitable immune response. It could have taken many years or never to have had a successful vaccine if the fundamental biology were different. This second dimension is why I was sceptical when some people were certain back in March that we'd have a vaccine rolled out in 6 months.

I was going to say about the R4 explanation. The guy made it very bckear that the delays are mostly due to paperwork, funding and finding enough volunteers. None of these are a problem.

pointything sums it up well. This has had an unprecedented degree of focus and investment.

What's been interesting about this is that it shows how quickly drugs can be developed if there's a really pressing need for them.

One of the main reasons why it typically takes so long to get drugs developed is that they are hugely expensive and risky so people tend not to fund them unless they a) could be very lucrative for the investors (such as rare diseases and cancer drugs or b) they are essential.

Enter COVID, for which a solution was unquestionably essential to everyone in the world.

Necessity the mother of invention and all that...

new technology (mRNA) probably gave marginal time-saving benefit to front runner compared with those using more traditional viral technology, too.

I suspect it's the vast sums of money they were given - have the Tories ever invested so much in science that wasn't a weapon?

IMHO it is competition that has driven the search for a vaccine, each company/country/region driving forward funding & research in an unprecedented way.

Scientists (in commercial organisations) don't seem to have been cooperating with each other.

This is likely to be an ongoing vaccine required by billions of people, the monies to be made are huge.

A Cambridge professor said on R 4.
Imagine if the M25 normally took 1 hour for you to travel 5 miles.
Then imagine if someone cleared the motorway for you and allowed you to travel at 100 mph.

All the normal obstacles to developing and marketing this vaccine have been removed.

mobile.twitter.com/mark_toshner/status/1328837111869566976

It's cos this disease doesn't just kill poor black people

Is this a joke? HIV cost millions of lives of men, women and children across the world. Not helped by the nay sayers in the USA and Africa who denied it, thought it was the Lord's retribution and failed to recognise transmission.

SARS mostly affected people in the Far East though bird flu came this way. Flu is another problem which the world tries to cooperate over.

People worldwide have been trying to deal with polio - not helped by those thinking vaccines are part of a conspiracy to control people.

And those are the viruses - to say nothing of malaria, yellow fever, diptheria etc.

By throwing massive resources at the problem, at unprecedented scale across the Pharmaceutical industry and academia worldwide and, as others have said, by working through the phases of design, testing, trials, analysis, licensing, production, distribution etc etc all at the same time (and at considerable financial risk) rather than one after another.

It’s incredibly impressive what they have managed to achieve. Hats off to the boffins!

As others have said, Incentive and money.

Combination of throwing huge amounts of resources and using existing technologies/vaccines already in development for sars/mers. The reality is that if malaria etc was affecting us in the richer countries then effective vaccines would be developed!

@crosstalk

HIV has killed a wide spectrum of people, yes, but it's actually easy to prevent unlike covid. We also have effective treatments. But the main problem with hiv is that it's a different kind of virus. HIV could be eradicated by human behaviour, unfortunately humans don't follow public health advice!

According to my DH, very important person at a leading pharma company, the Pfizer vaccine has been made using a new technology. Not quite sure of the details 😂 but obvs the whole worlds scientific community is on the case as well and the development process has been sped up dramatically. It’s testament to how efficient the pharma industry can be compared to our car crash of a government.
Those given it will be based on a side effect vs covid risk assessment eg. Catching covid carries a far greater risk to an elderly/ vulnerable person than the potential side effects so worth taking it. Different story for young healthy people.

@movingonup20
‘ The reality is that if malaria etc was affecting us in the richer countries then effective vaccines would be developed!’

Not strictly true. Merck invented the Ebola vaccine which doesn’t effect us in the western world. Saved millions of lives.

It’s amazing what happens when the richest most powerful governments in the world need something done, ain’t it!

Money money money must be funny in a American presidents world!

Virologists on a Twitter have said that the main reason that vaccines usually take so long to develop is because they have to spend huge amounts of time filling in grant applications, waiting for the grants to be read then sent for approval, etc. With a lot of the bureaucracy done away with it has allowed the scientists to focus purely on the research, not to mention the sheer number of people all focussed on one goal which almost never happens with other diseases/viruses.

You literally just have to read one article on a reputable website to find out or even simply apply a bit of common sense so YABU for implying there’s anything dodgy

Massive funding and support from worldwide governments
Many different teams developing different kinds of vaccine simultaneously rather than one team trying one approach then another approach if the first one fails
Having different stages of testing running at the same time instead of one after the other
Running manufacturing alongside testing and approval instead of afterwards