When will we have a COVID-19 vaccine?

Summary: At least 160 candidate SARS-CoV-2 vaccines are in development and being assessed in preclinical studies and clinical trials. In general, for a vaccine to be approved or licensed by regulatory authorities, it must demonstrate both safety and high efficacy in the prevention of a specific disease in the relevant populations. However, the COVID-19 pandemic poses specific logistic and scientific challenges with respect to the assessment of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidates. Challenges to the evaluation of candidate vaccines for SARS-CoV-2 before approval or licensure during the ongoing pandemic include rapidly changing levels of exposure to the virus and population immunity, social distancing practices and the possibility of antibody-dependent enhancement of disease. Careful attention must also be paid to postlicensure assessment of vaccines, including the risk of antibody-dependent enhancement of disease, which must be actively monitored closely over multiple years after vaccination. Mathematical modelling results underlining the importance of vaccine efficacy in older age groups will also be highlighted in this talk. Presenters: Dr. Manish Sadarangani is Director of the Vaccine Evaluation Center at the BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute and an Assistant Professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases, UBC Department of Pediatrics. His research links clinical trials with basic microbiology, immunology and epidemiology to address clinically relevant problems related to immunization and vaccine-preventable diseases. Dr. Daniel Coombs obtained his MSc and PhD in applied mathematics from the University of Arizona. He then did postdoctoral work at Los Alamos National Lab, before joining the Department of Mathematics at UBC as a faculty member, in 2003. Dr. Coombs contributes to our understanding of health-related sciences, especially immunology, within-host infection, and epidemiology, through development and application of mathematical, computational, and statistical methods. He works closely with experimental scientists at UBC and BC Children’s Hospital Research Centre, and public health experts at the BCCDC. He is a member of the Canadian Chief Science Advisor’s expert panel on COVID19.

BC CDC Presenters

7/28/2020 6:00:00 PM