First generation COVID vaccines may be ‘imperfect’: UK Vaccine Taskforce

LONDON: Kate Bingham, Chair, United Kingdom (UK) Vaccine Taskforce, said on Tuesday, October 27, that the first generation of COVID-19 vaccines is likely to be imperfect and that they “might not work for everyone”.

Bingham wrote in a piece published in The Lancet medical journal that no one can be sure if we will ever be able to develop a vaccine successfully. It is therefore important that we guard against complacency and over-optimism. She added that the first generation of vaccines is likely to be imperfect and we should be prepared that they might not prevent infection but reduce symptoms and even then, might not work for everyone or for long.

Bingham wrote that the Vaccine Taskforce recognises that “many, and possibly all, of these vaccines could fail”, adding the focus has been on vaccines that are expected to elicit immune responses in the population older than 65 years. She went on to write that the vaccine manufacturing capacity of the world is highly inadequate to produce the billions of doses that we urgently need, while adding that the UK’s capacity of producing vaccine doses remains till date “equally scarce”.