Coronavirus: Expert 'would not put money' on finding vaccine

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-52457323

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A leading scientist has said he would not put any money on an effective coronavirus vaccine being found any time soon.

But Prof Hugh Pennington said the virus could still be "seen off by Christmas" through social distancing, testing and contact tracing.

And he played down fears of the country being hit by a second wave of Covid-19 cases once the lockdown is lifted.

He also criticised the low number of tests that have been carried out.

Prof Pennington, a microbiologist who has previously advised both the UK and Scottish governments, was giving evidence to a meeting of the Scottish Parliament's health committee by video link.

He told the committee that, while there were about 80 groups across the world currently working on an effective vaccine, there was no guarantee that any would ultimately be successful.

And while he was "hopeful" that a vaccine would be found, he said he would "not be putting any money on it at this stage".

Prof Pennington added: "There is already evidence suggesting that immunity against Covid-19 is not particularly strong after infection.

"Many people don't really develop very much in the way of antibodies but they recover from the infection, which might suggest that traditional vaccines are not going to be particularly effective.

"I think probably the best thing we can hope for is a vaccine or a set of vaccines which will be partially protective, and they may not work as well in the elderly because most vaccines don't.

"So to put all our money on a vaccine as the way we can end the current crisis I think will be a mistake, because we may never get to that point."

He also said the UK did not currently have the capacity to manufacture a vaccine in sufficient quantities, and the country would therefore "just have to put our order in".

'Reasonably optimistic'

Despite this, he insisted that it could be possible to "see the virus off by Christmas" if the country "really blasts away" with its testing facilities.

And he claimed it was "very unlikely" there could be a second wave of the virus, as this was an idea linked to influenza epidemics - which he said are "quite different".

Prof Pennington said the ultimate goal should be to eradicate Covid-19, as had happened with diseases like Sars and smallpox.

He said: "It's a reasonably optimistic position, in that there's no reason in my view why we shouldn't look at Sars as the model - a virus we managed to control and eradicate, unlike flu, which is a virus we've never managed to eradicate and which kills people every year.

"I don't see any reason why we should be so pessimistic as to follow the flu model, when we know this virus is very different."

He said the current lockdown had been successful, but mass testing could and should have been rolled out "faster and more effectively" across the UK

"We don't have either a vaccine or antiviral drugs available for Covid-19, so prevention is the absolute paramount thing. The only way we know where the virus is is by testing. And we have a very good test.

"We could have done a lot more to get that test rolling in many, many centres. We had the test, but we didn't use all the facilities available - not just in public health or NHS laboratories, but in research institutes and universities."

And he said lessons must be learned for future virus outbreaks, as he warned: "There will be other pandemics."

He said: "We have to do better on our pandemic planning, we need to have better stocks of PPE and better testing facilities - not necessarily running, but to deal with surge capacity.

"We don't know when they will happen, we don't know how serious they will be, but if we don't spend the money to have the capacity to cope with them then we'll have the same issues we're having now with Covid-19."