1. Introduction
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the
aetiological agent of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a disease
that has had global impact, with case rates surging to over 3,000 deaths
a day across Europe alone. Moreover, since the initial reported
emergence in December 2019 in the Hubei province of Wuhan, China, and
the World Health Organisation (WHO) declaring the COVID-19 outbreak a
pandemic (11 March 2020), 128 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 have
been reported globally, including 2.8 million deaths. As of this year
(2021) there have been profound breakthroughs such as the approval and
administration of vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and
Oxford/AstraZeneca, with additional vaccines from Valneva, CureVac
Novavax and Johnson & Johnson currently under assessment by the
Medicines and Healthcare products Regulator Agency (MHRA), with others
in the pipeline (e.g. GlaxoSmithKline/Sanofi Pasteur’s vaccine which may
be available by the final quarter of 2021).