A TV interview with Dr. Bryan Ward is the chief medical officer at medic ago
Provinces are opening but case numbers are climbing in some parts of the country, and the only thing that can stop coved 19 is a vaccine.
the vaccine may be ready by the fall.
there's not a lot of hypes this week too big vaccine makers claiming they could have one ready by the fall.
the results of one small study on humans are now in, and they appear to be encouraging,
I mean this is encouraging news Jake the plan is to have maybe a billion doses.
vaccine will take one year to be ready
I think we're going to have a vaccine by the end of the end, now the doctors would say well you shouldn't say that I'll say what I think sounds amazing considering it usually takes years for a vaccine to be developed.
so is it all too good to be true?
Madonna did, 't share all of his human trial data with the public
There are mounting concerns that Madonna did, 't share all of his human trial data with the public, and it was only tested on 45 people, and that other firm A AstraZeneca, it has 't even published results of its human trials yet.
even if a vaccine is ready by the end of the year will it only go to the highest bidder and could Canada be frozen out, here's the thing world leaders are scrambling to make sure their people get covered first, and so far it looks like the u.s. is winning that race.
the federal government will invest in manufacturing all the top vaccine٠candidates before they're approved, so we're knowing exactly what we're doing before they're approved.
that means they better come up with a good vaccine because we're ready to deliver it.
billions of dollars at American companies working on a vaccine
the US has thrown billions of dollars at American companies working on a vaccine and an extra billion, and a half to get dibs on potential vaccines from Sanofi and France, and AstraZeneca in the UK and again this is all before they're approved.
so where does this international tug of war leave Canada the federal government is invested 192 million to help create a made in Canada vaccine, but those vaccines haven't even started human trials, yet.
we're months behind countries like China the US and the UK we asked the federal government for details on its plan, and it told us through close monitoring of the vaccine development pipeline both domestically and nationally.
the Government of Canada will work quickly to negotiate purchase agreements with vaccine manufacturers to secure supply for all Canadians as soon as it is feasible yeah that's the plan the government also told us by this summer.
the National Research Council aims to be ready to produce up to a hundred thousand vaccine doses per month but Canada has almost 38 million people kind of flashback here to the swine flu in 1976 when Canada had to purchase a flu vaccine from the United States, but then u.s.a decided to vaccinate its entire population first, and we never got our vaccines joining me.
now are two people working on two of the most promising made in Canada vaccines both with funding from the federal government, Dr Bryan Ward is the chief medical officer at medic ago, he's in Montreal and Dr Volcker Curtz is the CEO and director of Vito inter vac with the University of Saskatchewan.
he's in Saskatoon so hello both of you um a lot of Canadians have been hearing what sounds kind of amazing news out of the United States is this blind optimism, Brian, for Canadians to think they could get a vaccine by September, well.
I think it's good to be optimistic, but there are more and less credible sources of information and I think that the scientific evidence.
the medical evidence certainly what Dr Fauci is saying is that it's extremely unlikely there will be a vaccine for widespread use by September and Volcker.
Follow up the dialogue between the broadcaster and researchers
I know that not that long ago you approached the Canadian government saying that if there were to be an emergency like this that you would need to ramp up capacity, but what did you tell them I mean is that part of the problem that we don't have the manufacturing in place to produce a vaccine really quickly.
A comparison between the five many prominent coronaviruses vaccines
so Canada had a number of vaccine manufacturers that have capacity themselves medic ago is one of them, but for public research like ours, the current capacity is quite limited.
and so the federal government has recognized this and has funded for example construction of a man fracturing facility here at Vito enter back, but also at the National Research.
Council in Montreal and Then, at several other places in Canada too so your capacity.
I think Brian is you've got two plants so once you go through the human trials you've got something that you think works.
you can produce the vaccine, but one of the ones with the bigger capacity is in the States, and we saw Donald Trump basically at one point during this crisis say we're not going to ship the mass, we're going to keep the masks for us.
he said I mean is there a concern are you at all concerned that you won't be able to get the vaccines from the US-based lab that you know Trump could say sorry keeping it for ourselves, well.
he said, I guess that is a possibility we hope that wouldn't come to pass the there is a production capability in Quebec City, but you're right we have a five times larger facility in the United States. I think that in the event that our vaccine looks wonderful and we start producing on a large scale at both sites.
he said, I think there would have to be a process of negotiation to see how much of the vaccine that we produced in the United States would be able to be shipped up to Canada, but there will be political involvement and interference in the movement of vaccines as they become available for Kovan and Volcker.
do you have fears that you know if everything looks like the Americas are trying to gobble up as much of the potential vaccine as they can do you have fears that Canada will be outgunned here?
he said I don't think we want to start a panic and getting people starting to worry about whether they will have access to vaccines or not.
he said I think what is important is what Brian and I said that you know it's important that in Canada we have technologies going forward and as a part of these Canadian vaccines.
our mandate is to ensure that Canadians will have access to these vaccines so Brian, how a Messi could this get politically?
well, all of us hope that it doesn't get messy politically but there are clearly some countries in the world Canada included that have multiple vaccine technologies moving forward, while other countries in the world have no vaccine manufacturing capacity.
whatsoever and I think it is on all of us to try to make sure there is some degree of equity in the distribution of the vaccines as they become available, and again we're not talking about one vaccine.
we're talking about probably several of these vaccine technologies moving forward to a very large scale, so you're talking about equality regarding countries or regarding people like is it is the rich and well-connected, will really both right now.
Follow up the dialogue
it's very clear that in the United States us after the front line workers some people who appear to be at the highest risk are the people who can't work from home, so the bus drivers, taxi drivers, Uber drivers people who are in the past food service.
and we need to make sure that those individuals who are very high risk are among the firsts to be offered in the vaccine are there plans for that, and how difficult is that to make happen, Volcker, do you think well again.
he said I think the governments around the world in collaboration with the World Health Organization a little have to look at these things and Canada, for example, has already agreed to make some vaccines available to other countries as a part of the global work.
that's ongoing global coordination, so work is underway well the last word to you Brian.
I mean do you think that like what would you tell Canadians who are kind of hoping that maybe in a few months this pandemic will be stopped by a vaccine.
oh well, one of the things that peoples keep saying is they use the word vaccine singular and even the largest companies in the world Santa Fe JMJ are talking about producing a billion doses of vaccine.
but most people are planning on using two doses of the back of whatever vaccine it is which means that even the largest manufacturers could only produce half a billion protect half a billion people so even
everybody vaccinated the last word to you, Volcker, what do you think you.
I agree with Bryan it's very important that we see multiple technologies come forward with many vaccines both in Canada as well.
