As much of Europe struggles to cope with a second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and people across the world remain keen on returning to normality, the need for a vaccine has never been more pressing.

This edition of The Agenda with Stephen Cole looks at where scientists are up to in the search for the COVID-19 vaccine and consider whether it can be the silver bullet that rids the world of this deadly virus.

Hundreds of potential vaccines are in development around the world but only around a dozen are at the phase-three trial stage, where they are being tested on people.

The Agenda has spoken to Helen Yang, senior director of Global Strategy and Business Development at Sinovac Biotech, about the progress of the vaccine's international trials that the China-based biopharmaceutical company is developing.

Also interviewed was Jerome Kim, director-general of the International Vaccines Institute in Seoul, to get his view on when a vaccine might become available and whether a single successful vaccine would be enough to rid the world of COVID-19. The crucial process of how the vaccine might be distributed is among the topics.

Paul Offit, head of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, who is the co-inventor of a rotavirus vaccine, told The Agenda why he thinks social distancing measures are likely to continue being part of our lives, regardless of the availability of a vaccine.