The Covid 19 Vaccines Beyond

Distinguished expert in vaccine development John Rhodes tells the story of the first approved COVID-19 vaccines and offers an essential, up-to-the-minute primer on how scientists discover, test, and distribute vaccines. As the COVID-19 pandemic has affected every corner of the world, changing our relationship to our communities, to our jobs, and to each other, the most pressing question has been—when will it end? Researchers around the globe are urgently trying to answer this question by racing to test and distribute a vaccine that could end the greatest public health threat of our time. In How to Make a Vaccine, an expert who has firsthand experience developing vaccines tells an optimistic story of how three hundred years of vaccine discovery and a century and a half of immunology research have come together at this powerful moment—and will lead to multiple COVID-19 vaccines. Dr. John Rhodes draws on his experience as an immunologist, including working alongside a young Anthony Fauci, to unravel the mystery of how vaccines are designed, tested, and produced at scale for global deployment. Concise and accessible, this book describes in everyday language how the immune system evolved to combat infection, how viruses responded by evolving ways to evade our defenses, and how vaccines do their work. That history, and the pace of current research developments, make Rhodes hopeful that multiple vaccines will protect us. Today the complex workings of the immune system are well understood. The tools needed by biomedical scientists stand ready to be used, and more than 160 vaccine candidates have already been produced. But defeating COVID-19 won’t be the end of the story: Rhodes describes how discoveries today are also empowering scientists to combat future threats to global health, including a recent breakthrough in the development of genetic vaccines, which have never before been used in humans. As the world prepares for a vaccine, Rhodes offers a current and informative look at the science and strategies that deliver solutions to the crisis.

Vaccine reluctance and refusal are no longer limited to the margins of society. Debates around vaccines' necessity -- along with questions around their side effects -- have gone mainstream, blending with geopolitical conflicts, political campaigns, celebrity causes, and "natural" lifestyles to win a growing number of hearts and minds. Today's anti-vaccine positions find audiences where they've never existed previously. Stuck examines how the issues surrounding vaccine hesitancy are, more than anything, about people feeling left out of the conversation. A new dialogue is long overdue, one that addresses the many types of vaccine hesitancy and the social factors that perpetuate them. To do this, Stuck provides a clear-eyed examination of the social vectors that transmit vaccine rumors, their manifestations around the globe, and how these individual threads are all connected.

In response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and the societal disruption it has brought, national governments and the international community have invested billions of dollars and immense amounts of human resources to develop a safe and effective vaccine in an unprecedented time frame. Vaccination against this novel coronavirus, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), offers the possibility of significantly reducing severe morbidity and mortality and transmission when deployed alongside other public health strategies and improved therapies. Health equity is intertwined with the impact of COVID-19 and there are certain populations that are at increased risk of severe illness or death from COVID-19. In the United States and worldwide, the pandemic is having a disproportionate impact on people who are already disadvantaged by virtue of their race and ethnicity, age, health status, residence, occupation, socioeconomic condition, or other contributing factors. Framework for Equitable Allocation of COVID-19 Vaccine offers an overarching framework for vaccine allocation to assist policy makers in the domestic and global health communities. Built on widely accepted foundational principles and recognizing the distinctive characteristics of COVID-19, this report's recommendations address the commitments needed to implement equitable allocation policies for COVID-19 vaccine.

This open access book addresses the multiple health dimensions posed by the COVID-19 pandemic in India and other countries including nine in Asia, five in Sub-Saharan Africa, and New Zealand. It explores the impact of the pandemic on mental health, sexual and reproductive health and rights, health financing, self-care, and vaccine development and distribution. The contributing authors discuss its impact on vulnerable populations, including interstate migrants and female sex workers. The significant role of media and communications, rapid dissemination of information in social media, and its impact during the COVID-19 pandemic era are discussed. It closes with lessons learned from the experiences of countries that have contained the pandemic. With contributions from experts from around the world, this book presents solutions of problems that relate to COVID-19. It is a valuable resource appealing to a wide readership across the social sciences and the humanities. Readers include governments, academicians, researchers, policy-makers, program implementers, as well as lay persons.