Yong sees development of more Covid-19 drugs rather than vaccines
Researchers are likely to develop Covid-19 antiviral drugs than vaccines as there is lower investment involved, expert virologist Dr Yong Poovorawan wrote on his Facebook page on Wednesday.
He explained that any development of vaccines would focus on containing the spread of the disease during an emergency before concentrating on safety once the situation returns to normal.
“To study a vaccine's efficiency, it is necessary to have more than 10,000 volunteers use both real and placebo jabs,” he said.
“However, a study on drug efficiency involves up to 1,000 volunteers, so it requires lower investment compared to vaccine trials.”
Yong said the possibility of developing an entirely new Covid-19 vaccine is almost zero at this point because a third phase of clinical trials needs a large amount of investment, plus the severity of the disease is likely to drop.
He pointed out that no new Thai influenza vaccine has been launched after one was developed during the flu outbreak in 2009.