Even if it has been an intense per-day fight against coronavirus during the 7-month-plus battle resulting in the gain of a certain quantum of confidence, with winter approaching shortly from now, tensions are quite palpable across the world particularly in Europe and the US. While it was presumed that velocity of the spread that lessened to a great extent there after June had marked a closure of the Covid chapter with waiting for the vaccine the only thing to do, dramatic spike in cases during the last couple of weeks have caused fresh worries. It’s back to square one and the only way out now is to accelerate the pace of the vaccine’s arrival and also try saving as many lives with alteration of existing strategies of treatment. Efforts are going on worldwide for the same and an interesting proposition has been placed in this regard by one of India’s top medical virologist, Dr T. Jacob John, the former head of clinical virology at CMC, Vellore, the essence of which is to try an emergency use of Covid-19 vaccine on high-risk individuals in parallel with ongoing phase 3 efficacy trials. Although the proposal is waiting to be deeply evaluated by the medical fraternity, it has attracted a good amount of attention since it bats for taking calculated risks. At a time when major procedures of clinical treatment of patients affected with Covid, that have been trusted as efficacious are being declared ‘useless’ one by one, a little more calculated risk-taking would not be irrational.
The proposal is that the vaccines currently in the making in India and are at the third stage of efficacy trials with encouraging immune response can be offered to high-risk individuals simultaneous to these trials. In more simpler words, the highly-critical Covid patients particularly with underlying health disorders and the elderly on the verge of death can be tried with vaccine(s) found to be safe and generating immune responses as a last-ditch effort. The other finding expected from this proposed ‘additional exercise’ is that it would facilitate faster detection of adverse effects, if any, thereby throwing new light on the vaccine making process that might actually contribute in expediting the fast-tracking goal. In terms of standard procedural norms where the protocol is to allow vaccine roll-outs only after surety of efficacy through large-scale phase 3 trials, the proposal is definitely a major shift. According to various medical experts, the argument should gain ground since it is in conformity with medical ethics as the limited and supervised roll-out will be under full and informed consent of the targeted recipients.
For saving lives and for a faster arrival of the vaccine, this is a proposal worth thinking.

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Kenter Joya Riba

(Managing Editor)
      She is a graduate in Science with post graduation in Sociology from University of Pune. She has been in the media industry for nearly a decade. Before turning to print business, she has been associated with radio and television.
Email: kenterjoyaz@easternsentinel.in / editoreasternsentinel@gmail.com
Phone: 0360-2212313

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