By Laura McIntyre 
We have been tracking how healthcare professionals (HCPs) respond to drug launch news, as it happens, in CREATION Pinpoint’s Drug Launch Trackers. For the next few months, we are going to track and report on the COVID-19 vaccination discussion and highlight the reactions of HCPs online.
The vaccine race
HCPs excitedly received the update from Oxford University scientists who claim they will have a coronavirus vaccine ready in September 2020. 962 HCPs shared 1,165 posts calling it wonderful and encouraging news to hear.
In the US, Epidemiologist and public health scientist, Eric Feigl-Ding, created a tweet thread providing some background to Oxford University’s success. While some of the general public were sceptical towards his posts, his peers retweeted them more than 20 times.
🦠VACCINE IN 5 MONTHS?! Oxford team believes they'll have a million #COVID19 vaccine doses and proof that it's safe and effective by September 2020. The team says the past success of the technology is why it'll beat the government's timeline.
THREAD 🧵 https://t.co/9h05cbcKFE
— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) April 23, 2020
A post by UK-based doctor, Harvey Olufunmilayo, received similar attention from HCPs who shared his views and expressed their hope for the vaccine’s success.
GOOD NEWS: The UK will start trying out a Coronavirus vaccine on people from tomorrow.
The COVID-19 vaccine is being developed by scientists at the University of Oxford, who have said it has an 80% chance of success.
Let’s pray that it works.
This is wonderful news to hear.— #OurFavOnlineDoc 🩺🇳🇬🇬🇧💎 (@DrOlufunmilayo) April 22, 2020
Concise information resources
HCPs widely shared concise and visual information resources on COVID-19 vaccines in development. A post by Eric Topol, a US based physician, with a graphical guide explaining each vaccine design, was shared by 93 HCPs. Commenting underneath, his peers rushed to share links to the guide’s online version, praised the clarity of the resource and discussed further questions it imposed. The infographic by Springer Nature was shared by a total of 119 HCPs.
A great, new infographic on #COVID19 vaccineshttps://t.co/XQzZ6dSofu @NatureNews by @ewencallaway and Nik Spencer pic.twitter.com/tbtMDAwS8c
— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) April 28, 2020
Pharmacists could play a part
A UK nurse Jane Lambert raised an important question regarding the ability to cope with the sudden vaccination demand once the vaccine is ready. As the CEO of the training centre for pharmacists and nurses, she suggested pharmacy technicians could play a part in the mass vaccination and sought her peers’ support online. Her post was widely endorsed by other HCPs, with more than 40 retweeting it.
PLEASE RT if you would support #PharmacyTechnicians being able to #vaccinate. We are going to need to provide mass vaccination when the #pandemic one is ready. @MattHancock @NHS_HealthEdEng @President_APTUK @MrsQuaye pic.twitter.com/QZ4lDO43Dz
— Jane Lambert (@JaneLambertECG) April 18, 2020
You can keep up to date with what HCPs are saying about COVID-19 vaccines and other pharmaceutical tracking updates within the Tracking section of CREATION Knowledge, or by signing up to our monthly eJournal.
Read the previous COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker:
BCG is seen as a possible ‘game changer’ in COVID-19 treatment
Methodology notes:
- Data for this research was analysed from the online Twitter conversations of HCPs talking about COVID-19 vaccines in the English language (all other languages are available), between April 16th 2020 and April 30th 2020.
- Between April 16th 2020 and April 30th 2020, 7,296 HCPs shared posts about COVID-19 vaccines 14,045 times all over the world.
