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FROM TOI PRINT EDITION
Healthcare will never be the same after Covid – given how fast myths were shattered and consumer behaviours transformed
April 13, 2021, 8:50 PM IST
By Vikram Gupta, Alka Goel and Malay Krishna
While the Covid pandemic has had a significant negative impact on global health, economy and society, there has been a surprising upside – longstanding practices in the healthcare sector have been transformed, perhaps forever. We outline six common myths that were broken by the pandemic. As we look at the transformations that happened, there is a prescription for building future momentum.
Myth 1: Development of new therapies and vaccines can take years or even decades. Actually, in one year, the world has 12 safe and effective vaccines, with another 20 nearing launches, having entered phase 3 of clinical trials. The speed of pharma discovery began with Chinese researchers sharing the genome of the virus within weeks of the pandemic, followed by accelerated, collaborative research across continents. Recent advances in genetic engineering further compressed timelines. And regulators cooperated with private manufacturers in an unprecedented way, fast-tracking reviews and allowing innovations such as remote clinical trials. New-age technologies like AI and ML have substantially accelerated the path to drug discovery and development.