Virologist and Professor, Christine Carrington, has dispelled some fears that the public may have surrounding the Covid-19 vaccine.
At the Ministry of Health media briefing on Monday, Carrington noted the concerns about the vaccine, especially as it pertains to the rapid pace in which they were being developed
Professor Carrington said that while the world was racing to find a viable vaccine in the shortest space of time, it does not mean that “shortcuts” were taken and compromised its safety.
She said “Even when it takes a long time to get a vaccine- 10 years- a lot of that time is downtime. It’s time spent writing grant proposals. It’s time spent getting money, it’s time spent getting approvals. It’s time spent waiting, waiting a lot.”
“In this case, what has been happening is because everybody is so focused- all the authorities, all the governments, all the people involved, all the stakeholders- are all focused on this one goal, that movement from one stage to another, all that downtime has been cut out. So there have been no shortcuts taken…it is just making it more efficient.”
There are already a few vaccines touting high effectiveness and T&T has expressed particular interest in the one being developed by Moderna.
Oxford/AstraZeneca, Pfizer and BioNTech are the other developers.
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