The global pandemic has sparked a race to find a vaccine for COVID-19. However, fast-tracking human tests is no guarantee we'll have one this year.
Despite world governments and research groups working overtime on a vaccine, experts say it could take one year to eighteen months before a viable one is mass produced.
Former Republican Congressman Jim Greenwood is the President and CEO of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), a trade association representing biotechnology companies experimenting with solutions.
“In order to make a vaccine that you are now going to give to billions of people, you have to make sure it not only is it effective, but the potential side-effects are not worse than the disease is,” Greenwood told KTRH.
Greenwood says it's possible we might never have a permanent vaccine. Although he's optimistic eventually there will be a solution.
“We have to move as fast as the science can allow us to move. We can’t move so fast that we make safety a secondary consideration. We have viruses like HIV for which we have never been able to find an effective vaccine. So there’s no guarantee,” Greenwood said.