BHC Nicosia DynamicUK series: the scientific response of the UK and the FCDO to COVID-19
A vaccine solution is what can help us return to a normal way of living, Professor Carole Mundell stresses in an online discussion presented by the British High Commission Nicosia.
In this fifth webinar of the #DynamicUK series, the British High Commission presents an insightful discussion with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office’s (FCDO) Chief Scientific Adviser (CSA) on how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the FCDO’s work.
Professor Mundell discusses with her colleague Myrtani Pieri, Assistant Professor at the Department of Life and Health Sciences in the University of Nicosia, about the scientific response of the UK and the FCDO. She makes specific reference to COVAX, and on supporting science initiatives such as UK on genomics on viral samples. She also tackles the challenges of developing a vaccine for the coronavirus and how COVAX acts as a mechanism for all countries, especially the poorest ones, to have equitable access to vaccines.
We want to get back to a mobile globally connected world, we want to get back to the normal lives we had, we want to be able to go out, see our friends and family, socialise, work in the way we did in the past; and we can’t do that until the world is safe, until this vaccine solution is the thing that will help us go back to a normal way of living.
Throughout this thoughtful discussion, the FCDO’s CSA paints a very elaborate picture of the situation and the progress of vaccines and how politicians are trying to manage the situation and the distribution of knowledge in order to create a unified solution.
Commenting on the rising challenges, Professor Mundell states:
The COVID crisis has really highlighted that our politicians are desperate for solutions, because they want to run their countries, they want to have successful and thriving economies and they want to have healthy populations. And of course, they turn to science to do that; there’s lots of challenges, not just in the lab, not just in the clinical trials but right through to our logistics- worldwide in fact. We need to come together as nations to show that we can deliver the full chain of the vaccine right to our patients.