Potential Covid-19 Vaccines Testing Underway to Ensure Safety – Clinical Pharmacologist
He noted that, the complexity of the safety evaluation is a significant contributor to delays in getting an approved vaccine.
Jonas Danquah 
Clinical pharmacologist and a professor at the Centre for Tropical Clinical Pharmacology, Prof Alex Dodoo says there has been significant progress in the quest to find a vaccine for the covid-19 disease.
Prof Dodoo mentioned that, there are indeed vaccines that are being evaluated for safety before they are given the green light.
According to him, the complexity of the safety evaluation is a significant contributor to delays in getting an approved vaccine.
He however asserted in an interview on Accra based Joy FM that “within the next three weeks, we [scientific community] should be able to conclusively say which ones will go further better.”
Director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Anthony Fauci, recently said that a vaccine for the virus could take 12 to 18 months to develop, test and approve for public use as new vaccines typically take years to earn approval.
However, there are indications that Covid-19 patients who have been getting an experimental drug called remdesivir have been recovering quickly, with most going home in days.
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According to a news reports from STAT News, patients taking part in a clinical trial of the drug have all had severe respiratory symptoms and fever but were able to leave the hospital after less than a week of treatment.
Whether a vaccine will soon be approved for use in the next three weeks or in 2021, Prof Dodoo said on Thursday that an important consideration that the scientific community will have to make will be between the benefit of that vaccine versus its associated risks.
