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China reported the outbreak of a novel corona virus, by December 2019, which was later declared as a pandemic by WHO on 11th March 2020. Across the globe, this “pneumonia-causing Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Corona virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)” has affected millions of people though its origin was first identified in Wuhan, China. Global nations suffered huge losses due to this pandemic, both in terms of health and economic perspectives. The outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic instigated fear among people for lives across the globe while nations started face severe economic crises, low GDP, tremendous increase in unemployment rate, disastrous burden on healthcare system etc., Confining person-to-person interaction, to the best possible limits, was the only response of many countries when pandemic struck the lives, since there is no established or universally-accepted treatment protocols available. Workplaces were closed down with announcements made for curfews, lockdown and restricting people movement and mass gathering to ensure social distancing.
COVID-19, caused by novel corona virus, is an extremely dangerous, life-threatening disease that is characterized by respiratory, hepatic, gastrointestinal and neurological complications (WHO,2021). When COVID-19 infections started receding, countries went back to normal life. However, this disastrous decision brought the second wave of COVID-19. Though the second wave of COVID-19 badly hit India, there is no standard drugs or protocol designed to treat the disease.
In this scenario, globally nations started prioritizing the research on developing a vaccine to fight COVID-19 since only a vaccine can be a life saver and its optimal distribution within best possible time is the key factor to save from the deadly disease. Quickly after China reported the outbreak of novel corona virus, governments and global pharma companies worked tirelessly to find a vaccine that can fight the disease. But as time went, without promising results, the data regarding corona virus is disseminated to global researchers. After the publication of first gene sequence of COVID-19, the race for vaccine development got picked up. Lurie (Lurie,2020) cited that mRNA-based SARSCoV-2 vaccine, produced by Moderna, underwent phase-1 clinical trials on 16thMarch 2020, a miracle turn-around time of mere 10 weeks, after the publication of first genomic sequence. This is phenomenal since a vaccine development may usually take up to 10-15 years. It is evident from literature that mumps vaccine is the fastest candidate developed so far within a timeline of 4 years (Moreira,2020). It is matter of pride, as researchers developed a COVID-19 vaccine in less than 1 year without compromising safety.
In a short span of time eight vaccines got permission of emergency use in different countries. Selection of best Covid-19 Vaccine depends upon various criteria thus tools from Multi criteria decision making can be applied to compare these vaccines. Analytical Network process (ANP) is one of the most popular MCDM method that works by making pair wise comparisons. Candidate vaccines are grouped in cluster “alternatives” whereas seven deciding criteria are placed in cluster “Criteria”. The inter relationships between various members of clusters and between various clusters is also considered.
The present study proposes a mathematical model that uses analytical Network process (ANP) to rank eight vaccines according to seven criteria. The ranking of the ranking of vaccines becomes all the more important as more than one vaccine got approval in many countries . The vaccine ranking help people to select vaccine that suits their requirements.