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The Evidence

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Claudia Hammond joins scientists and experts to explore science’s effect on our world

Claudia Hammond joins scientists and experts to explore the effect science has on the world around us

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The Evidence: Coronavirus: The Evidence: Hopes and fears for Covid-19 vaccines

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Coronavirus: The  Evidence

26/12/2020 GMT

Hopes and fears for Covid-19 vaccines

Coronavirus: The Evidence

BBC World Service - The Evidence, Coronavirus: The Evidence, Hopes and fears for Covid-19 vaccinesSearch BBC

Vaccines could mean liberation for all, but will rich countries corner supplies?

Vaccines and virus mutations; vaccine safety; risks of vaccine nationalism and how to overcome misinformation and anti-vax messages around emerging vaccines.

Less than a year in, and the first vaccines are already being rolled out, with many more in the pipeline. It is an unprecedented scientific response to the global pandemic and researchers around the world have provided the first hope against one of the most formidable challenges facing humanity in a century.

Claudia Hammond and her expert panel of guests consider the scale of this herculean effort and answer listeners' questions about vaccine safety, trust, immunity and long term protection.

The World Health Organisation has repeatedly said that no-one is safe until we are all safe, so the threat of vaccine nationalism and the purchase of millions of the first vaccine doses by rich countries is something that is concerning everybody worried about equitable vaccine distribution.

How will the COVAX facility, which is designed to boost vaccine purchasing power for the world's poorest countries, fare in the face of nationalistic purchasing - and will surplus doses be shared so that all seven point five billion of us can get protection?

And, finally, the scale of the threat from vaccine hesitancy. Any vaccine is only as good as the numbers of people who will take it to achieve herd immunity. The numbers of those suspicious about a potential Covid-19 vaccine have grown over the course of the pandemic, causing real concern for governments around the world. How can people be reassured that vaccines are safe?

This month, Claudia's guests include Professor Peter Hotez, Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor college of Medicine in Houston and co-director of the Texas Children's Hospital Centre for Vaccine Development in the USA, Professor Helen Rees, founder and executive director of the Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute, University of Witwatersrand in South Africa, Kalipso Chalkidou, Professor of Practice in Global Health at Imperial College, London and Director of Global Health Policy at the Centre for Global Development and Dr Ève Dubé, a medical anthropologist from the Institute of Public Health in Quebec, Canada.

Produced by: Fiona Hill, Samara Linton and Maria Simons
Editor: Deborah Cohen
Technical Support: Tim Heffer and Giles Aspen

Picture: Covid-19 Vaccination Clinics Open In Surrey, UK, Credit: Leon Neal/Getty Images

The Evidence: Coronavirus: The Evidence

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Claudia Hammond is joined by experts to answer questions about the coronavirus Covid-19.

In The Evidence Claudia Hammond is joined by an expert scientific panel to answer questions from the audience on a variety of aspects of the coronavirus and Covid 19, from the impact of lockdowns and self isolation on the spread of the disease, to the question of who should be tested and the search for treatments. 
Professor Vivek Jha, Executive Director, of the George Institute for Global Health, India, talks about the situation in his country where a lockdown was announced four hours before it began.

Dr Lyndsey Broadbent, a virologist at Queens University Belfast in Northern Ireland, explains what is now known about the biology of the virus and why it causes serious disease in some people and no symptoms in others. 
Christos Lynteris, a medical anthropologist from St Andrews University, discusses the issue of stigma that’s being experienced by some people who have had Covid-19. 

Claudia also hears from a psychiatrist at the University of Verona in northern Italy, which has taken the brunt of cases in the country about some of the most serious consequences for doctors and nurses, and the general population.

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