A global search for the COVID-19 vaccine will likely generate multiple winners

It has been called the “biotechnology arms race.” Global exploration of the COVID-19 vaccine — allegedly a silver bullet to bring us all back to normal.

However, there can be multiple winners in this race.

And, according to experts, the silver bullet to save us from this crisis may not be at all, or the way we’re used to.

When the federal government announced Monday an agreement that Australians would guarantee access to two potential vaccines, It also announced that it expected “first as early as January” to be available first.

Oxford-AstraZeneca candidates participate in stage 3 clinical trials, Some experts say the idea that it will be deployed early next year is “optimistic” and even “ambitious”..

The federal government has enhanced the availability of vaccines if they have been approved by the Therapeutics Administration, but much remains uncertain, among other things, when it will be available.

There are a few things we know about what a vaccine program will look like.

What do we know about the first dose?

I know that the disease COVID-19 can develop when exposed to SARS-CoV-2 droplets.

Vaccines do not stop the virus from entering the body, but do trigger an immune response that prevents the development of COVID-19 disease—we become immune to the droplets.

Under its vaccine deal, labeled as a “hope” by Prime Minister Scott Morrison, the government has more than 84 million potential vaccine doses, 33.9 million from the University of Queensland (UQ), 51 million from Oxford AstraZeneca. Secured.

It wants to receive the first 3.8 million vaccinations of the Oxford candidate that the first Australians-potentially health workers and the elderly-want to have in Australia by the first two months of 2021. Said he was out.

Oxford vaccine First human test produced a “robust immune response”Emphasizes its position as one of the key candidates.

Research released by the team behind UQ Candidates Show How Vaccines Work In Preclinical Studies..

Hamsters showed “a very good level of protection against viruses in the lungs” with one dose and excellent data on “protection against both viral replication and disease” with two doses It was.

Need a booster shot?

World-leading immunologist in an article published Monday Professor Peter Doherty explained why booster shots were possible, Regardless of whether people had already contracted for COVID-19.

He said the “one shot” strategy was used when the measles vaccine was introduced in 1968, but by 1981 there was a pandemic in the United States.

“It was found that the children were still immune, although there was enough virus left in the community to gently reinfect the Manju virus,” he wrote.

“But when the epidemic fell, the clinical disease recurred.”

Professor Doherty said giving the second shot of the vaccine solved the problem.

“No matter how successful the vaccine is, this is something we can fully consider at COVID-19,” he said.

The concept of combining vaccines one after another, known as “prime boosting”, is also being considered.

Professor Paul Young, one of the scientists behind the UQ’s chemical and molecular sciences and behind the university’s vaccine candidates, said on a recent scientific committee that the strategy “has been around for about 20 years. “But it was never used by humans.

“But we know it works in animal studies,” he said.

“Prime with one specific vaccine type and boost with another.

“For example, with an Oxford vaccine based on a viral vector [UQ vaccine] Both target the same protein but come in a slightly different way. ”

For example, he said the Oxford vaccine stimulated a particular immune response.

“And if you get the same vaccine again, you can actually get some complications, off-target effects, etc.,” said Young.

“But if you were only protein [which is the UQ vaccine] Then focus the immune response on the target.

“Therefore, there are real benefits to the prime boost approach.

Are you protected against multiple stocks?

There have been some mutations in SARS CoV-2, but scientists remind us that it’s not as scary as we always think.

Unlike the flu, Coronavirus mutates slowly and new strains are not always difficult for the virus to fight..

Published in Minutes of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) journal last week One of the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidates suggested that “it’s likely to match all currently available variants.”

“Analysis of SARS-CoV-2 sequences sampled since the onset of the pandemic showed that mutations were rare. This required coverage of all circulating circulating potential vaccine candidates. Is there,” says the report.

A study by a group of 12 scientists found that the current pandemic SARS-CoV-2 virus “constituted a homogeneous virus population.”

“Viral diversity has challenged efforts to develop vaccines against other viruses such as HIV-1, influenza and dengue, but each of these viruses constitutes a more diverse population than the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Their report,” says their report.

“Thus, we can be cautiously optimistic so that viral diversity does not hinder the development of a broadly protective SARS-CoV-2 vaccine.”

The influenza virus is believed to be unstable, and mutations have a major impact on the action of the vaccine. Therefore, you need to be vaccinated every year.

Young said the coronavirus is “relatively stable.”

“While there are mutations that accumulate as this spreads throughout our population, it’s not at the rate that vaccines are likely to be ineffective against them,” he said.

“We are much more convinced that the virus is relatively stable, and that the vaccine we develop this month and next month is actually a vaccine that will work one or two years later.”

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