Researchers worldwide
are struggling day and night to find a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2, the virus
causing the COVID-19 pandemic.
While the empowering results uncovered by trial
Covid-19 vaccine being created by the University of Oxford and Moderna Inc in
early human testing has gotten the spotlight in the previous week, raising
expectations for early accessibility in the market, World Health Organization
(WHO) declared that the first use of the vaccine can't be started until
mid-2021.
The Serum Institute of India (SII) said it has begun manufacturing a potential coronavirus vaccine produced by the University of Oxford. According to a report, the Pune-based vaccine maker plans to manufacture 2-3 million doses of vaccine by end-August. Earlier this week, preliminary results of the Phase 1/2 trial published in the medical journal The Lancet show Oxford COVID-19 vaccine ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 induces strong immune responses with no early safety concerns.
The researchers reported
that the vaccine triggered a T-cell response within 14 days of vaccination and
an antibody response within 28 days. T cells are the white blood cells that can
attack the cells that are infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus that generates
COVID-19 disease.
Your immune system
Your immune system is developed of a specific system of organs, cells, and tissues that all work together to help protect you against disease. When a disease-causing germ (for example, a virus or bacteria) enters your body, your immune system:
·
Recognizes the
germ as being outside (not belonging in the body).
·
Responds by
making special proteins (called antibodies) that help destroy the germ. Most of
the time, your immune system can’t act fast enough to stop the germ from making
you sick. But by destroying the germ, it can usually help you get well again.
·
Remembers the
germ that made you sick and how to destroy it. That way, if you are ever faced
the same disease germ in the future, your immune system can immediately destroy
it before it has a chance to make you ill. This protection is called immunity.
Vaccines and your immune system
Vaccines give you immunity to a disease without you getting sick first. They are created using killed or weakened versions of the disease-causing germ or parts of the germ (called antigens). For certain vaccines, genetic engineering is used to make the antigens used in the vaccine. It’s much safer to get a vaccine than to get the disease it prevents.
When you get a vaccine,
your immune system reacts to the vaccine the same way it would to the real
germ.
Then your immune system:
· Recognizes the germ in the vaccine as being outside.
·
Responds by
making antibodies to the germ in the vaccine, just as it would for the real
germ.
·
Remembers the
germ and how to destroy it. That way, if you are ever exposed to the
disease-causing germ in the future, your immune system will be able to quickly
destroy it before it has a chance to make you sick. This is how you get
immunity from vaccines.
WHO is attempting to guarantee reasonable vaccine distribution, yet meanwhile, there is a risk of spreading the virus worldwide, said Mike Ryan, top of WHO's crises program, as daily new cases around the globe are at near-record levels.
As the world continues
to engage with the debilitating human toll of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic,
experts such as Andrew Pollard, Director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, and Chief
Investigator on its COVID-19 trials have been at the lead of research, most
significantly about vaccine development. The remarkable progress made by
Professor Pollard and his team, captured by data published this week in the
Lancet is creating hope that an effective and safe vaccine might be available
earlier than originally expected, during 2021.
Adar Poonawalla ( The
CEO of SII ) had said that around 4,000-5,000 people in Pune and Mumbai will be
injected with the vaccine by end of August as part of phase 3 trials planned to
last over two months in cities with many hotspots. The trials will evaluate the
effectiveness of the Oxford COVID-19 vaccine called Covishield in India. The
phase 3 trials have already started in the UK, South Africa, and Brazil.
Poonawalla had also
announced that the company aims to manufacture 300-400 million doses of the
vaccine by the year-end, following the success of initial and licensure trials.
If all goes as planned, ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 will cost less than Rs 1,000 per dose
in India.
1
|
Inactivated vaccine
|
Phase 3
|
Henan Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention
|
||
2
|
CoronaVac
|
Phase 3
|
|||
3
|
Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG)
live-attenuated vaccine
|
Phase 2/3
|
|||
4
|
AZD1222
|
Phase 2/3
|
|||
5
|
mRNA-1273
|
Phase 2
|
|
||
6
|
Ad5-nCoV
|
Phase 2
|
Tongji
Hospital; Wuhan, China
|
||
7
|
Adjuvant recombinant vaccine candidate
|
Anhui Zhifei Longcom Biopharmaceutical,
Institute of Microbiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
|
Phase 2
|
||
8
|
BNT162
|
Phase ½
|
Multiple study sites in Europe and North
America
|
||
9
|
BBIBP-CorV
|
Beijing Institute of Biological
Products; China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm)
|
Phase 1/2
|
Henan Provincial Center for Disease Control
and Prevention
|
|
10
|
GX-19
|
Phase ½
|
GenexineGenexine
|
||
11
|
Gam-COVID-Vac
|
Gamaleya Research Institute, Acellena
Contract Drug Research and Development
|
Phase ½
|
Various
|
Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology
and Microbiology, Health Ministry of the Russian Federation
|
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