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Vaccines are incredibly important in the fight against disease. We’ve been able to keep a handful of viral diseases at bay for decades because of vaccine development. Even so, there exists confusion and unease about their usefulness. This guide explains what vaccines are, why they are so important and how scientists will use them in the fight against the coronavirus. As more candidates appear and are tested, we’ll add them to this list, so bookmark this page and check back for the latest updates.
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Vaccines are a really clever fake-out. They make the body (think it’s infected so it stimulates this immune response. For instance, the measles vaccine tricks the body into thinking it has measles. When you are vaccinated for measles, your body generates a record of the measles virus. If you come into contact with it in the future, the body’s immune system is primed and ready to beat it back before you can get sick.
The very first vaccine was developed by a scientist named Edward Jenner in the late th century. In a famous experiment, Jenner scraped pus from a milkmaid with cowpox – a type of virus that causes disease mostly in cows and is very similar to the smallpox virus – and introduced the pus into a young boy. The young boy became a little ill and had a mild case of cowpox. Later, Jenner inoculated the boy with smallpox, but he did not get sick. Jenner’s first injection of cowpox pus trained the boy’s body to recognize the cowpox virus and, because it’s so similar to smallpox, the young man was able to fight it off and not get sick.
Vaccines have come an incredibly long way since . Scientists certainly
inject pus from patients into other patients, and vaccines must abide by strict safety regulations , multiple rounds of clinical testing and strong governmental guidelines before they can be adopted for widespread use.
What’s in a vaccine?
Vaccines contain a handful of different ingredients depending on their type and how they aim to generate an immune response. However, there’s some commonality between them all.
The most important ingredient is the Antigen. This is the part of the vaccine the body can recognize as foreign. Depending on the type of vaccine, an antigen could be molecules from viruses like a strand of DNA or a protein. It could instead be weakened versions of live viruses. For instance, the measles vaccine contains a weakened version of the measles virus. When a patient receives the measles vaccine, their immune system recognizes a protein present on the measles virus and learns to fight it off.
A second important ingredient is the adjuvant. An adjuvant works to amplify the immune response to an antigen. Whether a vaccine contains an adjuvant depends on the type of vaccine it is.
Some vaccines used to be stored in vials that could be used multiple times and, as such, contained (preservatives) that ensured they would be able to sit on a shelf without growing other nasty bacteria inside them. One such preservative is thimerosal, wh ich has garnered a lot of attention because it contains trace amounts of easily cleared ethylmercury. Its inclusion in vaccines hasn’t been shown to cause harm, According to the CDC . In places like Australia, single-use vials are now common, and thus preservatives such as thimerosal are no longer necessary in most vaccines.
In developing a vaccine for SARS-CoV-2, scientists need to find a viable (antigen) that will stimulate the body’s immune system into defending against infection.
The pathogen at the center of the outbreak, SARS-CoV-2, belongs to the family of viruses known as
In developing a vaccine that targets SARS-CoV-2, scientists are looking at these projections intensely. The projections enable the virus to enter human cells where it can replicate and make copies of itself. They’re known as “spike proteins” or “S” proteins. Researchers have been able to map the projections in 3D , and research suggests they could be a viable antigen in any coronavirus vaccine.
That’s because the S protein is prevalent in coronaviruses we’ve battled in the past – including the one that caused the SARS outbreak in China in 4524 – . This has given researchers a head start on building vaccines against part of the S protein and, using animal models, they’ve demonstrated they can generate an immune response .
There are many companies across the world working on a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, developing different ways to stimulate the immune system. Some of the most talked about approaches are those using a relatively novel type of vaccine known as a “nucleic acid vaccine.” These vaccines are essentially programmable, containing a small piece of genetic code to act as the antigen.
“The good news is we did it more quickly than we’ve ever done it,” Fauci told Minutes. (Note: Minutes and CNET share a common parent company, ViacomCBS.) “The sobering news is that it’s not ready for prime time, for what we’re going through now.”
Why does vaccine production take so long? There are many steps involved and a lot of regulatory hurdles to jump through.
“For any medicine to be sold it needs to go through the standard process of clinical trials including phase 1 [to] 3 trials, “said Bruce Thompson, dean of health at Swinburne University in Australia. “We need to ensure that the medicine is safe, will not do harm, and know how effective it is.”
Scientists can’t assume their vaccine design will just work – they have to test, test and test again. They have to recruit thousands of people to ensure the safety of a vaccine and how useful it will be. The process can be broken down into six phases:
Vaccine design: Scientists study a pathogen and decide on how they will get the immune system to recognize it.
Animal studies: A new vaccine is tested in animal models for disease to show that it Works and has no extreme adverse effects.
Clinical trials (phase I): These represent the first tests in human beings and test the safety, dose and side effects of a vaccine. These trials only enroll a small cohort of patients.
Clinical trials (phase II): This is a deeper analysis of how the drug or vaccine actually works biologically. It involves a larger cohort of patients and assesses the physiological responses and interactions with the treatment. For instance, a coronavirus trial may assess if a vaccine stimulates the immune system in a certain way.
Clinical trials (phase III): The final phase of trials sees an even greater amount of people tested over a long period of time.
Regulatory approval: The final hurdle sees regulatory agencies, like the US Food and Drug Administration, the European Medicines Agency and Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration, take a look at the available evidence from experiments and trials and conclude whether A vaccine should be given the all-clear as a treatment option.
In the US, Moderna’s Phase I clinical trials began on March in collaboration with NIAID, the US National Institutes of Health and KPWHRI. It is the first testing in humans of the mRNA vaccine and will look to enroll a total of 66 healthy adult volunteers aged between and 86 years.
“This Phase 1 study, launched in record speed, is an important first step toward achieving that goal,” Fauci said in a statement.
Manufacturing costs were supported by the Coalition for the Epidemic Preparedness Innovations.
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The trial will see patients receive two injections of the mRNA – 45 days apart. The patients will be divided into three groups of 22 and given differing doses: Either micrograms, (micrograms or) micrograms. Safety reviews will be performed after the first four patients receive the lowest and middle doses and again before all patients receive their shots. Another safety review of data will be performed before the patients set to receive the highest dose are a injected.
Even if the vaccine is proven to be safe and shows promise in protecting against COVID – , it could still be a year away – at least.
There are no specific treatments for COVID – as as, Although a number are in the works, including experimental antivirals, which can attack the virus, and existing drugs targeted at other viruses like HIV which have shown some promise in treating COVID – .
(Remdesivir) Remdesivir, an experimental antiviral made by biotech firm Gilead Sciences, has garnered. a large part of the limelight. The drug has been used in the US, China and Italy, but only on a “compassionate basis” – essentially, this drug hasn’t received approval but can be used outside of a clinical trial on critically ill patients. Remdesivir is not specifically designed to destroy SARS-CoV-2. Instead, it works by knocking out a specific piece of machinery in the virus, known as “RNA polymerase,” which many viruses use to replicate. It has been shown in the past to be effective in human cells and mouse models .
Its effectiveness is (still being debated) , and much more rigorous study will be needed before this becomes a general treatment for SARS-CoV-2, if it does
Encouraging clinical trials in Wuhan and Shenzhen involving over patients of the Japanese influenza drug favipiravir were
reported by Chinese scientists in the Guardian on March
. The drug appeared to shorten the course of the disease, with patients who were given the treatment clearing the virus after just four days, while those who did not took around 19 days.
The drug is manufactured by Fujifilm Toyama Chemical, but the company has declined to comment on the claims. Favipiravir, also known as Avigan, is an antiviral and is designed to target RNA viruses which include coronaviruses and influenza viruses. The drug is thought to disrupt a pathway which helps these viruses to replicate inside cells. According to the Guardian, a source within the Japanese health ministry suggests the drug is not effective in patients showing severe symptoms.
) The Food and Drug Administration Commissioner, Stephen Hahn, discussed the investigations into chloroquine during a White House briefing on March . “That’s a drug that the president has directed us to take a closer look at as to whether an expanded use approach to that could be done to actually see if that benefits patients,” said Hahn.
Donald Trump announced the FDA approved chloroquine to be used on a “compassionate use” basis on March .
It’s not a good idea to rely on a vaccine to stop the spread of coronavirus because that’s many months away. The best way to stop the spread, right now, is to continue practicing good personal hygiene and to limit interactions with others. “The best thing to do is the simple things like hand washing and hand sanitizing,” Thompson said.
This outbreak is unprecedented , and changing behaviors is absolutely critical to stopping the spread.
There are a huge number of resources available from the WHO on protecting yourself against infection. It’s clear the virus can spread from person to person, and transmission in communities has occurred across the world. Protection boils down to a few key things:
Researchers have been able to map the projections in 3D , and research suggests they could be a viable antigen in any coronavirus vaccine. 
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