Through the tax and weekly radio show is called spectrum if you like and the information on the chrono larysa or any other science topic you should really check out our podcast so you can get it wherever you get your podcast you can also find us at dot com slash science. d around the world the race to develop a vaccine against the new coronavirus continues apace. The World Health Organization is now tracking more than 170. 00 candid frank scenes in the preclinical state researches test at the vaccine triggers an immune response to animals in phase one testing the vaccine is given to a small group of people to see if its safe place to involves a somewhat Larger Research group to test dosages and in phase 3 the vaccine is given to thousands of people to make sure its effectiveness so far there are no successful candidates. Seems normally require years of tests. And time to build up Production Volume the w. H. O. Has said it doesnt expect widespread vaccinations against coronavirus until mid 2021 but even that is optimistic. Germanys tough Biotech Companies and clinics are rushing to come up with a vaccine to defeat the Novel Coronavirus some are already carrying out human testing after the lengthy approval process was speeded up the stakes are that high and so lets take a look at how the trials work. A little pinprick but it brings high hopes with it inside the syringe a vaccine from the cure a fact company its designed to imitate the corona virus in the body to provoke an immune response about 200 people have volunteered to take part in the trial. This way i can do my bit to help defeat the virus. 10 companies in germany are currently working to defeat the virus by developing vaccines. To or already testing their vaccines on humans in trials that generally consist of a number of phases. After discovery in the lab there preclinical tests then comes phase one which is mainly focused on whether the human body can tolerate the vaccine and the reaction of the immune system face to look at i will hide the dosage has to be in phase 3 tests effectiveness whether the vaccine offers protection in everyday life normally approval takes about 8 to 10 years but now the process is supposed to go much faster. Here at the university of tubing in hospital scientists are working on phase one. From the data so far we can see that the vaccine is well tolerated and safe and we also hope that the 1st signals of the immune defense which are becoming apparent are also very positive see a post gives. Another company from germany is already testing its vaccine on humans biotech based in the german city of minds is partnering with the u. S. Pharmaceutical company pfizer. They are already combining phases 2 and 3 testing whether the vaccine actually protects against coronaviruses in everyday life biotech has around 30000 volunteer test subjects worldwide it hopes to have an approved vaccine before the end of the year the head of germanys medical regulator e body thinks germany is on the right track all. German Vaccine Developers are well advanced they are in a global premier league these are modern platform technologies for vaccines i expect that even to vaccines could possibly come from germany if there are more so much the better. A vaccine for everyone by early next year an ambitious goal that will require a lot more pinpricks. But i speak to professor alric to noddle hes then your ologist and founding director of the quest center for transforming Biomedical Research thanks for joining us this search for a vaccine is all about trading off speed and safety how regulators manage to quicken the approval process without compromising on safety because that is the 100000000. 00 question and answer. In principle those. Are. All its fundamentally and so one has to make a trade off this is about risk benefit and i think it is at the moment its very much at the discretion of those agencies where they are accelerating they are prostrate approving drugs particular vaccine is now or not and a lot of this obviously is not really transparent so we dont know much about those processes and i think what a lot of people might be wondering is whether or not we can be set in that any vaccine that does go through this streamline process is totally safe. I mean theres nothing that is totally safe in particular not with vaccine or Drug Development and there are certain risks certainly with vaccines and they may even be late delayed those risks so that is obviously a very. Difficult decision and at least i and i think im in the community how many others would argue that we should not sacrifice safety for speed. Because too much is at stake but in principle although there are these rules and you mentioned the phase 123 and so forth. In the end its at the hands and in the decision of the regulator as to phosphoric and so we can only hope that there is good evidence and the evidence will be weighed so far its hard to tell whether were on the right track but we all know that. There are trials that have been halted. And there are concerns about the phase 12 trial from from russia so this just shows that this is very sensitive and the public has to really follow this in fact right now over the weekend i think we had the release of protocols from the 3 Major Drug Companies that are running those face retrials which is unheard of and i think is a Good Development because it allows experts and also the public to scrutinize what they are doing speaking of scrutiny we should talk about russia which it just mentioned back in the august they said that they had approved a way came back saying sputnik 5 as theyre calling it but the International Community is doing i tears basically rejected that all we any closer to knowing whether that is an effective vaccine. No not at all i mean there was a publication in the law only recently i think listened to weeks ago. But it reports on a face one slash 2 trial that is open and that actually has no true if you can see and point it just looks at immune response it does not look at whether it prevents actually those infections and its a very small study and it has raised concerns in fact there is a letter of concern about the validity of the data and in fact lancet has contacted the authors to respond to that they have not responded they have said that they are going to respond but they havent done so yet so we dont know its very unlikely that in such a short time period any nation could determine safety and if you can see it of such an approach that it continues to be controversial that one do you think what will come out of this pandemic is perhaps potentially a different model for approving medications you think we will have a swifter process going forward. Well we will see whether the bet. Will materialize and whether these past developments actually pay off that will certainly push it in this direction but the whole issue of accelerated approval is actually not a new development in fact there have been discussions of this topic for many years now especially from haitian communities for example children parents of children with c. D. s diseases who argue that they dont have the time to wait for a lot of our large Clinical Trials and that they want almost experimental treatments right now and we should be aware of the fact that 16 percent of the f. D. A. Approval was right now already are on an excel aerated mode so this is not a new development its an ongoing discussion and many experts ethicists but also by medical researchers are concerned about this because we are lowering the bar and this certainly must certainly increase associated risks so also not ahead these. Thank you hearing is that today as our afraid weve run out of time we could talk about this all day of course professor or extend algal thanks for joining us. Thank you. And now its time for your questions to our science correspondent Eric Williams. Why has the covered 19 mortality rate dropped so much i answered this a few months ago but what was a fairly 10 u. S. Strand back then has turned into and to an undeniable one today so im going to answer it again 1st of all i need to emphasize that the mortality rate which is our best guess of the percentage of people who will on average die from the disease if they contract it and thats only something well really be able to calculate with any accuracy after the pandemic is over what we can look at now during the pandemic is whats called the case fatality rate which is the proportion of people who have died from among the people who we know beyond doubt have had it the ones who have tested positive for the disease and as you rightly say that number has fallen pretty dramatically over the last few months by around half in some countries the experts say there are a couple of reasons why 1st and foremost theres the experience factor the more medical professionals all over the world treat severely ill patients the better they get that knowing how to save them then of course theres the fact that the number of tests being carried out on a daily basis is rising continuously which means were catching a lot more positives than earlier in the pandemic when testing was was limited mostly to people who were severely ill in hospital settings and now were also confirming a lot more cases among those who have mild or no symptoms and thats related to the 3rd factor the experts say which is that the rise in testing means that were now also detecting tobit 19 much more frequently in young people and as we all know by now they are much less in. Likely to die from the disease than older people or finally some experts have expressed hope that the case they tell of the rate is maybe falling because maybe the virus is now mutating to be to be less virulent but thats still pretty highly speculative. Science correspondent Eric Williams thats all from this 19 special if you do want more from us check out the dedicated section of the t w website didnt we dont come back so joining us. Next can inspire big changes to meet the people making it possible to go out for a come from time city right. Join them as they set out to save the environment learn from one another and Work Together for a better future. Many thanks to you all for tuning in the cooking for good. Next on d w. Dollars to be a Little Society and on the labor market diversity is called more of the gender ethnic background in each School Orientation held for the military should be the deciding factor in career success. We talked to Human Resources director is diversity Just Lip Service to the reality made in germany. In 60 minutes on d w. 5 years of a conflict zone. 5 years of hard hitting political talk a good list of specific id like for you to leave like because thats what the free press stuff did you mean crime you coming back to the list its a public are you concerned or not concerned let me make sure i am missing you are you still Jim Sebastian pinera telling take you to the heart of the matter the highest levels of government why not just investigate and look here just to get the questions you will feel brings you somebody feeling from small credible comes from doing the colorful. No. Joke. We all have to fit 31 is based on the size of our shoes and the air that is measured by the amount of Carbon Emissions we call us that we know we all know welcome to this special edition of equal africa african environment show this week we will be focusing on Sustainable Living but before we get started lets welcome my charming colleague incompetent hi there sandra hi hello everybody as youve just had on todays program we want to take a closer look at just how much the idea of Sustainable Living is catching on here in africa and how much more we can only do yes you and i to make a bet to walt i am sundra to know you and he is what is coming up shortly. Going to go on the news even the computer and courage and great things to make them green and. Were going to move. In with both maybe syria. Because even before moving. On to find anything in ghana when we find out how to get one people will find out about something evil when. We start in a neighboring kenya grazing land becomes even a bit more on moment people are looking for theyre saying me nor my degree of life. Are now starting to be they dont need lots of money for that and there are no money. Later forest is a great place for wild bees to leave there are no fields or pesticides and very few people. The members of my site people who do live in the area traditionally collect wild honey in the forests its a barrios and dangerous activity but last year about corn and 14 other men went into the beekeeping business setting up 10 hives in the forest they dont take up much space and they are environmentally friendly. And i mean they get. Money and an income generating activity and this helps to uplift. The life. Like no greater number of. Young men yeah around. The school and getting him money. And. It has become very hard to make a living the traditional way and some you know magic pastoralist some men still have as many as a 1000 head of cattle. But nowadays they are the exception more and more looking for other ways to make a living. A major reason is frequent periods of drought that means dried out pasture land and less for the cattle to eat and drink another reason is that the land where they graze their heads in strength it also has to be shared with wild animals. Patrick property has been observing this development for years now he is himself from our side and the local Community Official and has close ties to the People Living here still observe centuries old traditions but they are being forced to change in order to survive. Biggest challenges the loss of blood loss of blood is in blood is going to be subdivided god would reduce the number of less that we rely on because that is the only thing that a lot can support that if you. Number 2 is the Climate Change grains are predictable. You cannot you cannot invest because of the future that there is not clear for us. Climate change and lots of. A couple of 100 kilometers to the north east and there are be African Beekeepers only commercial companies devoted to the development of the beekeeping and Honey Industry most of the 20 employees make cards for 2 beekeepers. And the only runs the from his skin to see Honey Production in kenya grow. Entry into percent of the honey consumed in the country is imported from tanzania but it would take time to build up a network of suppliants marketing china has more people need to go into beekeeping. Biggest challenge is getting enough money we can get to know and thats the challenge because the market is that its not the short market its the challenge is getting enough and this more amount of time is so far produced annoyed is not central to my road if it is sold in nearby villages but if production is carried out and if movie keeping project size time just for the future of the industry in kenya made proved to be sweet. Well before we get into more examples of Sustainable Living we thought it would be good to get a better sense of want to sustainability actually means here in africa i think you can help us move on to new york city indeed i can santa i mean order to find out more about what factors fully evolved in how sustainable our continents communities can be i met with identity care. Of the Green Institute here in lagos. Finally we get to see how you dont just want to see whether we talk about this motto Sustainable Living and sometimes i wonder how many people where or even understand the idea of sustainability in itself. Let me give an example like im a lecturer and when i was teaching my students about 200 a few times. And i simply asked a question like well thats me. And you were looking at me like you know you know. What are you talking about so i just gave you a very simple example of all my students youre writing a bicycle. What do you think that he said said some will say oh im just writing by soup but basically its for poor people its not necessarily fall mind they think about bicycle as a means of your transport as yourself when youre campers by daddy doing that you could be fits you know yes i mean cost of i think that picking up that so that suits a school you know and is saving money so its a win win situation and thats when you start thinking and the nights of the night you know going green is that when we situation is adults in the skews the attributes that its necessary in fossil money get resources that we can have a habitable planets and achieve ship prosperity a lot of people still dont understand what it means to drive with their environments and my to live with environment why did you get so charset every way how do we get the groups by mostly point the country out of the bottom of the crowd was so trying to get food access to clean water security what he wants and what were looking out to you being on the on the top of the pyramid actualization so do people have access. The clean water you have access to basic needs is way of excess of those things that you start thinking of ok my environment so forced we have to stop with the basic needs you is a people ok and then 2nd we have to take it from the grassroots from Elementary School and thats like a mild musician with from like the grandkids so this is a club suit promotes nasa social responsibility they go home and tell mommy and daddy and under their wind down the window and true you know some want to try sometime the kids will like no money you can do that you can do that in these against you know. Your debts in the area of making developments not clean you know those little kids theyll go home until their parents and your principal ever flexion and say ok you know i want to be the change but what do you think is it even taking or taking who we need to start looking at the youths and we start giving them reason the senseis b