The Race to Develop Vaccines for Emerging Diseases

by Pavithra Mohan

New diseases like Ebola, Zika, and Nipah have shown us how quickly a local outbreak can become a global problem. For scientists and vaccine developers, it’s like a race against time; where speed, safety, and teamwork are critical to stopping a crisis before it gets out of hand.

Why Speed Matters and Why It’s Difficult

Traditionally, developing a vaccine from scratch to final approval can take 15–20 years. That’s far too slow when a new disease is spreading rapidly.

• In the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic, vaccines were ready only after about 4 months; by then, the virus had already peaked in many places.
• During the 2014–2016 Ebola outbreak, the first vaccine became available only after the epidemic had already killed over 11,000 people.

Clearly, the old way of doing things is not fast enough for modern outbreaks.

New Global Efforts: CEPI & WHO

To fix this problem, major organizations have stepped in:

• CEPI (Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations): Launched in 2017, CEPI aims to cut vaccine timelines from decades down to less than a year. They focus on high-risk viruses like MERS, Nipah, Ebola, and Zika.
• WHO’s R&D Blueprint: The World Health Organization identifies which diseases pose the biggest threats and helps coordinate global research before an outbreak begins.

These programs also provide funding where companies normally wouldn’t invest, since many of these vaccines have little commercial profit potential.

Game-Changing Technologies: mRNA & AI

Two innovations are transforming vaccine science:

• mRNA vaccines: Instead of taking years, these can be designed in days and produced in weeks. We saw this with COVID-19 vaccines, which were rolled out faster than any in history.
• Artificial Intelligence (AI): AI can help predict which parts of a virus might make the best targets for a vaccine; even before lab experiments start. This helps researchers work faster and smarter.

The Remaining Challenges

Despite the progress, big hurdles remain:

• High costs & risks: A single vaccine can cost hundreds of millions to develop, and many fail along the way.
• Clinical trials: It’s hard to run trials during outbreaks, especially when case numbers are unpredictable.
• Cold storage & access: Some vaccines need very low temperatures, making them difficult to distribute in low-resource countries.

A Big Success Story: The Ebola Vaccine

One bright spot has been the Ebola vaccine (rVSV-ZEBOV, also called Ervebo). Thanks to global collaboration, it was approved in the EU and by WHO almost simultaneously, allowing it to be deployed quickly. This was one of the fastest vaccine approvals ever; a proof that fast, cooperative science can save lives.

Looking Ahead

The world is now better prepared than before. With global partnerships, mRNA technology, and AI, vaccine development is moving faster and smarter. But to win the race against the next outbreak, we still need to:

• Invest consistently in research.
• Improve how trials are run.
• Make sure vaccines are available for everyone, everywhere.

Only then can we stop future outbreaks before they spiral into global disasters.