How Canada makes vaccines … that never get developed
Posted December 12, 2022 7:11 am.
In today’s Big Story podcast, trials will begin in Uganda this week for three vaccines that could combat the Ebola outbreak — and one of those vaccines was created here in Canada. But it was created years ago, and simply sat there, waiting for someone, anyone, to move it to trial and manufacture. And this is something of a pattern.
Jason Nickerson is the humanitarian representative to Canada for Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières. He joins us today to delve into the vaccine development process, and explain why many potentially-viable vaccine candidates never make their way into the arms of those who need them most.
“We need a better, more predictable way of doing vaccine and drug development for these kinds of emerging infectious diseases, so that we’re better prepared and don’t have to rely on a pharmaceutical company finding a hundred thousand doses somewhere behind the ice cream in the freezer,” he said.
Why is Canada among the world leaders in finding vaccines, and never doing anything with them? Why does it take for-profit companies or dozens of deaths before these projects move forward? How many lives could be saved from how many viruses if Canada, and the world, were just a little more proactive?
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