A Medical Challenge !

 This coronavirus pandemic has so far killed two million people around the world and there is no end in sight,  despite a number of vaccines being either in production or being actively jabbed into the arms of citizens in many countries.

That word " Vaccine " means different things to different people.  Initially, medical science was looking for something that would provide lifetime immunity from the virus as has been the outcome with diseases like polio which ravaged earlier generations.

The vaccines presently on offer come with a lot of small print.  They offer a varying degree of protection, but we are not sure if they simply reduce the effect of the disease or prevent it recurring in milder form if the vaccinated person has the misfortune to again become infected.

What we have learned is that coronavirus has the ability to develop new characteristics according to the surrounding environment, hence we have a distinctly different format emerging in Britain and South Africa, which we hope will be contained by one or all of the vaccines on offer.

These emerging strains have so far not substantially increased the death rate and merely increased the rate of infection from person to person.   What we are seeing is not something new.  Every year we live with a disease that takes a new form that we seek to combat with a differing vaccine formulae each year.

That disease is called " influenza " and so far medical science has not been able to devise any form of permanent vaccine to eradicate it from spreading through the world population each winter.  We try and keep the " flu " under control by way of an annual flu jab which tries to predict what form the disease will take as it moves between the northern and southern hemispheres.

It must be apparent that influenza and coronavirus share a common characteristic and that the vaccines on offer must eventually be supplanted by an annual innoculation that changes periodically to encompass the different strains of coronavirus that are constantly emerging.   It may be possible to combine resistance to both in a common annual jab.

What is very clear is that we have failed to develop a cure for coronavirus. Developing effective new medication is a long and complicated process that requires constant testing to discover side effects.  When coronavirus burst onto the scene there was a high degree of urgency and short cuts were accepted and the vaccines on offer now were rushed to market.

What we now face is similar to the work done on influenza.  It will be expensive and time consuming, but it is essential because coronavirus has made the change from the animal world to affecting humans and it may not be the last to cross that barrier.