Covid-19 vaccine delivery requires political decisions

ESTIMATES of how long it will take to develop an effective Covid-19 vaccine have varied greatly since the outbreak began, from an optimistic few months to a more realistic year, to two years. It is something about which there can be no certainty. For some much older viral diseases, a vaccine has yet to be developed, though treatments may have improved considerably: there is still no HIV vaccine, for example, though in developed countries, there are many people who have the infection but nevertheless can stay alive and well with the drug treatments now available.

A lot of hopes have been invested in the development of a vaccine. This seems to hold out the possibility of the coronavirus being completely defeated and a resumption of normal life. If that is to happen, there are some steps between the development of a vaccine and its deployment on a mass scale that needs to be considered as a matter of urgency.

Once developed and tested for efficacy and safety, production would need to be ramped up on a huge scale. As supplies would be limited initially, priorities for vaccination would need to be set. And there is the question of ownership of the vaccine: who has rights over its production and marketing? If a private company develops a vaccine or a treatment drug that it patents and wants to sell at an exorbitant profit, what are governments going to do?