LONDON (Reuters) – Governments around the world face a major challenge in building the logistics needed for a major vaccine against COVID-19 and delivering clear messages to their citizens to reassure them. in the sights, public health experts said Wednesday.
Experts speaking at a Reuters Next conference from the United States, India and Britain said they were hopeful the world would turn a corner against the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021 – while authorities focusing on getting vaccines in their arms and urging pandemic outbreaks. adhere to social distance measures in the meantime.
“A lot of dancing was winning and celebrating our rollout of these big vaccines, but where we have fallen short we have not paid attention to the operational control and capability required to program design and implementation of vaccines, ”said Michelle Williams, dean of faculty at Harvard School of Public Health TH Chan.
She said she hoped that injecting funding into public health infrastructure and “clear messages” with the incoming administration of U.S. President Joe Biden would help by restricting the spread of the virus while also accelerating testing and immunization programs.
Heidi Larson, director of the Vaccine Confidence Project and professor at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said she felt that 2020 was, in some ways, the easiest part to tackle. pandemic.
Now, in 2021, “we don’t just have one vaccine, we have several vaccines, different doses, different platforms, and some of them have never been used before,” she said.
“It’s a time of uncertainty. Publications are tired. They are dressed. Not all politicians have been helpful here. And things change throughout the day, ”Larson told the conference.
She expected a “bumpy road” ahead in the coming months, with many of the older and most vulnerable receiving views and where people who are not at risk, and more likely being skeptical about vaccination plans, expressing concerns.
Dr Naveen Rao, senior vice president of the Health Initiative at The Rockefeller Foundation in the United States, speaking to the online conference from India, said that one uncertainty is for COVID-19 vaccine plans the issue of coronavirus mutations was reflected in new modifications.
“We don’t know how this will play out,” he said. “We should be careful about the variables.”
Rao noted that tests to date have looked positive on whether the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine can protect against new SARS-CoV-2 mutations that have emerged in Britain and South Africa. He also noted that scientists have said that the vaccines can be converted, if necessary, to bring about new changes.
“Because the virus is moving, we should be able to keep up. But time will tell, ”he said.
Reciting with Kate Kelland; Edited by Alex Richardson