Researchers look for coronavirus vaccine but no guarantee

Hundreds of volunteers all over the world are rolling up sleeves Injection of COVID-19 vaccine Hope that at least one of them can work and suppress the outbreak of coronavirus.

About 100 research groups Pursuit of vaccineAbout 12 in early human trials, or ready to start. None of them are guaranteed to work, but scientists only increase the likelihood that a crowded field will overcome many obstacles that some remain.

“We are not actually competing with each other” Dr. Andrew PollardHeads vaccine research at Oxford University. “We are in competition with the pandemic virus and we really need as many players as possible in that competition.”

You can’t predict which vaccine (if any) will work or even name the front line.

So Dr. Anthony ForchThe director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said: “In order to get the chance to get a safe and effective vaccine, we need more shots to reach our goals.”

First careful test of March A small number of volunteers received an injection To check for side effects, we turned to larger studies in China, the US, and Europe to look for tips that various vaccine candidates really protect.

The next task is to find out if the vaccine works in the real world by testing large groups of people in areas where the virus is circulating and finding ways to quickly distribute large numbers of effective candidates. Is that.

Policy makers are devising plans to overcome both obstacles in an attempt to reduce the number of years it normally takes to develop a vaccine. I was asked if I could get the vaccine by January, Dr. Deborah BerksThe White House Corona Virus Coordinator, told Fox News on Sunday. Is it possible to execute? ”

Fauci warns that developing a vaccine in 12-18 months can set a speed record, even if everything is completely successful. January marks the first year since the National Institutes of Health began producing its own COVID-19 vaccine. This vaccine is currently being tested by Moderna Inc.

Depending on how they are counted, the United States, China, United Kingdom, and Germany have 8-11 vaccine candidates early in the study. Last week, Pfizer and BioNTech launched a study testing four slightly different shots simultaneously. More laboratories will open in other countries, and another small number of vaccines will begin the first human trials by July.

There is no shortage of volunteers.

“This allows me to play a small role in the fight against this problem,” said Anthony, a 33-year-old Philadelphia resident who received the first test dose of the Inobio Offering Matheuticals DNA-based vaccine last month. Campisi said. “I can be a guinea pig.”

The first vaccine candidate works in many ways. For each vaccine type, some virus families perform better than others. But for coronaviruses, there is no blueprint.

In 2003, when scientists tried to create a vaccine against SARS, the outbreak ended before the gun was developed. Vaccine money is exhausted and work has stopped. The vaccine against MERS has only reached the first stage safety trials. Both diseases are caused by the coronavirus.

“By 20/20, we should have been working harder on coronavirus vaccines at the time,” he said. Dr. Sten Fermand, Dean of the Yale School of Public Health. Now, “If you want quick results, you need to try different strategies.”

Sinovac and SinoPharm of China are testing an “inactivated” vaccine made by propagating and killing a new coronavirus. The companies have little information on their shots, but the technology is proven and polio shots and some types of influenza vaccines are inactivated viruses. One of the drawbacks is that it is difficult to scale up to quickly generate millions of doses.

Most other vaccines in the pipeline aim to train the immune system to recognize some of the new coronaviruses. It is mainly a protein with a sharp tip that pierces its outer surface.

One way is to use a harmless virus to carry spike proteins into the body. While easy to create, identifying the virus that is the best carrier is an important issue.

Can Sino Biologics of China manufactured a vaccine using an adenovirus that causes a common cold, but it is designed to not spread in the body. Pollard’s Oxford team chose adenoviruses that are usually chimpanzee-sensitive in case human adenoviruses are attacked by the volunteer’s immune system before the vaccine works.

Another option is to inject people with a piece of the coronavirus’s genetic code that tells the body to produce spike proteins. It prepares to attack the immune system. This is a new, unproven technology, but promises faster production. The vaccine, created in collaboration with NIH and Moderna, Inovio Pharmaceuticals, and Pfizer-BioNtech, uses a genetic approach.

More ways will come next, including vaccines made with spiked protein nanoparticles and nasal drops as an alternative to injections.

Most vaccine studies to date have focused on safety and whether the blood of volunteers is immune. Some trials jump to more numbers immediately, but there is still a long way to go before we can prove the actual protection.

If the study participants were pierced at home or lived in an area where the coronavirus had not spread rapidly, researchers could face the problem of too few sick volunteers. That’s bad because scientists can’t know if other factors like vaccines or social distance practices are responsible for keeping volunteers healthy.

“When you’re chasing a pandemic, what looks like a good place to go today will be the wrong place two weeks from now,” Pollard said. “It’s really difficult.”

In the United States, some legislators are encouraging controversial experiments. To test the efficacy of the vaccine, we recruit young, healthy volunteers who consent to intentionally become infected with the new coronavirus. However, some healthy adults die of COVID-19, and until a doctor better understands why, this kind of “challenge study” creates a dangerous proposition with serious ethical questions: Vermund says.

Last week, the World Health Organization proposed to provide countries with testing sites for international projects that could speed development schedules by deploying promising vaccine candidates in places where COVID-19 is widespread.

In the United States, the Trump administration is planning a unique project called Operation Warp Speed ​​that overlaps with the study of “various candidates with different practices and behaviors.”

Even if the first useful vaccine is identified, there is not enough vaccine for everyone. As a result, many vaccine makers say they are already brewing large doses—wasting millions of dollars if you bet on the wrong candidate, but if your choice is successful. , Save months of high-volume vaccination. out.

“We now need to start building a new manufacturing facility,” said Charlie Weller, Head of Vaccine at Welcome Trust. “And some of these sites have to accept that they will be created for vaccines that will eventually fail.”

The US government has already signed a deal with Moderna and Johnson & Johnson for a total of approximately $ 1 billion.

“The first important thing is to make as much as possible,” he said. Dr. Richard Hatchet, CEO Coalition for innovation, Has funded several COVID-19 vaccine attempts worldwide.

Even if one of them works, we expect early distribution until enough people in both rich and poor countries are satisfied. Policy makers need to decide who needs the first dose most, perhaps a health care worker or the elderly.

“I’m worried about what I call vaccine nationalism. This is the obligation between elected leaders to protect the lives of their citizens and the obligation to share fairly on a global scale. Mr Hatchet said the relationship was tense.

There are billions of people who need vaccination, so one race winner alone cannot prevent it.

“It’s unlikely that one manufacturer or one candidate vaccine will be able to address and supply a global need,” Pollard said.