the reason why a covid19 vaccine has
come around
so quickly is because a lot of money and
resources have been thrown at it
these are all the steps normally taken
to create a safe and working vaccine
it usually takes at least a decade to
complete them all but with kovid they've
all been done in less than a year
so as is the case with all medicines a
vaccine goes through
extensive and rigorous testing before it
can be approved and rolled out to a
country's population
before any testing happens in humans the
vaccine is tested on animals in a
laboratory
in the case of covid19 ferrets mice and
monkeys have all been used
that's because they're similar to humans
in their physiology and biology
if the vaccine works and is safe for
animals clinical trials
begin phase 1 trials involve giving the
vaccine to a small number of healthy
volunteers
between 20 and 50 people here they're
looking at safety to check it generates
an immune response
and to determine the correct dosage
phase 2 trials involve several hundred
volunteers
and look at how effective a vaccine is
in humans this group involves adults of
all ages and sexes
and ideally all ethnicities phase 3
trials are similar to phase two but they
involve several
thousand volunteers they're still
looking at how effective the vaccine is
but on a much broader scale
usually these clinical trials run one
after another with time given for the
data on how safe
effective and stable the vaccine is to
be looked at and to make a decision
about whether the trial should progress
to the next stage
but because of the seriousness of the
kovid 19 pandemic
these phases sometimes overlapped some
were even merged but all the checks that
would normally happen
was still being done countries have been
so keen to find solutions that money has
been thrown at organizations to recruit
more scientists to work around the clock
and to hire more staff to help find
volunteers more quickly
and because covet 19 has been so
widespread finding volunteers to test
the vaccine on
has been easier than in other trials
when enough data has been gathered
it's submitted to a country's regulators
for approval scientific and clinical
experts review it to see how effective
the vaccine
is how safe it is how stable it is its
quality
and check that it's being manufactured
and stored in a way that meets safety
standards
and public health policy in the uk this
is the job of the mhra
the commission on human medicines and
even members of the public are asked
what they think
normally this happens after all the
trials have ended but in the case of
covet 19
the uk's regulatory body was being given
data
as the trials went along this is called
a rolling review
if a vaccine is then approved it can be
given to a wider population
but the regulators keep monitoring
health records and data on anyone who
gets one
the same as for any vaccine or medicine
and every batch of the vaccine that is
made
is checked for purity and quality before
it's sent anywhere
you