Today, some people are impatiently waiting for an injection to make this lingering virus disappear. Does Russia have a Vaccine for COVID-19? Well, one thing to note is that on August 11, 2020, Russia became the first country to approve this vaccine.
Vladimir Putin stated that he knows the vaccine works effectively and has gone through the necessary tests. In fact, he gave the vaccine to his daughter. With Russia only receiving COVID-19 cases since March 2020, why are they now the first to approve a vaccine for it? Was his approval of the vaccine hasty? How much time does it actually take to make a vaccine? Let’s take a closer look.
Vaccine Development Timeline
Generally speaking, it takes 10 years (at a minimum) to develop a vaccine. There are five stages involved in the process. Bypassing any of these phases could be catastrophic. The least amount of time it takes to begin the Discovery Research Phase is two years. We haven’t even crossed the one year mark for COVID-19, and yet there is a vaccine that they want to push to clinical trials (phase three). Putin’s statement about the vaccine going through all the necessary tests seems rather inaccurate.
Phase I: Discovery Research
During the first phase, all of the long, arduous research is conducted. Typically, this phase takes between 2-5 years and up to 100 potential vaccines are selected.
Phase II: Pre-Clinical
Subsequently, the second phase of the process begins. In this pre-clinical stage, the 100 potential vaccines that were selected in phase one are narrowed down to 20 vaccines. This takes about 2 years to complete.
Phase III: Clinical Development
Next, the Clinical Development phase commences. Think about it as a time when they ask people or take animals and test the vaccine out. This is where three important questions are answered: Is it safe? Does it activate the immune system? Does it protect against the disease? You can imagine that if this third phase is bypassed, these critical questions don’t get answered. As a result, many lives could be at risk for the need to find a vaccine faster. This phase takes between 5-9 years to finish.
Phase IV: Regulatory Review and Approval
During the Regulatory Review and Approval phase, a single vaccine is selected. It takes about 1-2 years for this selection to be performed.
Phase V: Manufacturing and Delivery
Finally, the vaccine is manufactured and delivered. This last stage requires specialist facilities which are relatively expensive to develop.
All in all, it takes a minimum of 10 years and about $500 million to produce a vaccine. So does Russia have a vaccine for COVID-19? Maybe, but it may be underdeveloped. Regardless, the vaccine is scheduled to be mass produced starting in September.
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