More than forty scientific projects seek the vaccineThe World Health Organization (WHO) published a preliminary list of pharmaceutical companies, research centers and universities that carry out studies with different degrees of progress. The
most realistic versions estimate that the vaccine will not be ready this year. The FDA has reiterated that there is also no specific treatment for the virus.
Three months after the first cases of Covid-19 reported in Wuhan, the vaccine to counteract this disease is still under investigation, despite premature announcements that it was considered successful. The latest
report from the World Health Organization (WHO) indicates that to date there are 41 projects to develop the antigen, in a global race that involves giants from the pharmaceutical industry and official organizations to research centers and universities of at least three continents.
The greatest progress towards this objective is concentrated in China and the United States, where this week the respective human trials began almost simultaneously, a key stage for its validation, but still far from reaching the production and marketing phase. According to experts quoted in international media, the vaccine as such could be ready only in 2021.
In a scenario that reaches almost a quarter of a million infected worldwide, and where false news about the possible cure for Covid-19 has abounded,
OjoPblico explains what is known about the vaccine and the process that continues until its application in patients with this disease.
What stage are the investigations in? Getting the vaccine has become a strategic objective for the two main world powers, China and the United States, which have committed public funds from the health and defense sectors, in addition to working in partnership with corporations in the pharmaceutical industry.
In China, these days a thousand scientists participate in a sort of national crusade promoted by the government, through nine projects, with five methodologies and different degrees of progress, according to a
recent report by the newspaper El Pas.
The peak of these investigations was announced last on March 17, when the Ministry of Defense of the Asian country reported that its Academy of Military Medical Sciences
"successfully" developed a vaccine for Covid-19 and was approved for clinical trials . The announcement gave rise to premature versions of the existence of the antigen, but the truth is that it has only just entered the stage of experimentation in humans.
What follows is a period of several months to determine if the experimental vaccine is safe.
A hundred people will participate in this process between March and December this year, according to the Reuters agency.
In the United States, the study that began this week is specifically funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and is conducted at the headquarters of the Kaiser Permanente Health Research Institute in Seattle, state of Washington. The experimental vaccine has been developed by scientists from this institution in alliance with another scientific team from the biotechnology company Moderna, Inc.
"The study evaluates different doses of the experimental vaccine for safety and its ability to induce an immune response in the participants," the NIAID said in a statement. "This is the first of several steps in the clinical testing process to assess the vaccine's potential."
The tests, officially announced earlier in the week, comprise a group of
45 healthy people , aged 18 to 45, who volunteered. Each participant will receive two doses of the experimental vaccine by means of an intramuscular injection in the arm, with a lapse of 28 days between both applications. The first phase of this experimental stage will last six weeks.
One of the participants
told CNN what they had explained about the procedure: “They are using a new technique that basically teaches the cells of my body to build protein structures that resemble the outer layer of the real coronavirus. My body should react to that and see it as an invader, attack it and learn to combat that structure that has been built. "
In parallel, there is a study, at a less advanced stage, being carried out by the United States Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases, in alliance with the Walter Reed Army Research Institute, the main biomedical research center administered by the Department US Defense
US President Donald Trump also announced on March 18 that he will invoke the Defense Production Law that will allow his government to mobilize funds to increase the
production of a possible vaccine and other equipment necessary to face the pandemic. Who else is investigating? The WHO report on
projects to develop the vaccine mentions pharmaceutical companies, research centers and universities in Europe, the United States and Asia. Although it is not an official record, but a list based on the information that the entity was able to gather, it offers an overview of the intense scientific activity to counteract the agent that caused the pandemic.
Among the institutions embarking on this race against time are the Imperial College of London and the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom; the Pasteur Institute in France; the Doherty Institute and the University of Queensland in Australia; the Baylor School of Medicine in Houston and the University of Pittsburgh, in the United States; the MIGAL Galilee Research Institute, Israel; and the University of Fudan, in China.
Also listed are the US companies Novavax, Inovio Pharmaceuticals and Greffex; AJ Vaccines from Denmark;
Vaxil Bio, from Israel; and Zydus Cadila, from India, among others.
However, most of these investigations are still in the preclinical stage, that is, the tests continue to be carried out in laboratories, but not in humans.
The estimated time to develop a successful vaccine is 12 to 18 months, according to a report from the United States Medical Association. This at best
Precisely this situation has generated controversy, due to the expectations generated after the announcements about the progress of the studies. The most serious occurred a few days ago, when a stock market analysis company questioned Inovio's announcement that he had developed a coronavirus vaccine in three hours.
Until then, the shares of this pharmaceutical company were the most highly valued in the biotechnology sector, with an increase in value of 300%. The day after the controversy, its share price fell 30%.
The case puts on the table the commercial component behind one of the largest scientific mobilizations of recent times.
How many phases does the development of a vaccine have? The estimated time to develop a successful vaccine is 12 to 18 months, according to a report from the United States Medical Association. This in the best of cases, considering that positive results have been obtained throughout the process. Development goes through three phases prior to approval.
In the first, the characteristics of the virus are evaluated. According to the Peruvian infectologist Eduardo Gotuzzo, former director of the Institute of Tropical Medicine Alexander Von Humboldt of the Cayetano Heredia University, at this stage it is a matter of identifying the “mechanism of damage caused by the virus, looking for similarities to understand the damage and stopping the immune response " Then you should see “what part of the virus is causing you harm. When that is established, you do laboratory tests to see if [the experimental vaccine] paralyzes the virus, kills it, or numbs it. "
In the next phase, tests are done on small animals, such as mice, and then larger ones, such as monkeys. In the last stage the tests begin in people.
Trials in the last phase are gradual and are usually started in small groups and then tested in thousands of people in order to ensure its effectiveness in the human immune system.
Will the vaccine be ready this year? Estimates of how long it will take to develop the Covid-19 vaccine vary by a wide margin. However, the American Medical Association has pointed out that even the experimental vaccines studied may not show the desired effectiveness at the end of 18 months.
Speaking to The Guardian, the infectious diseases professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Annelies Wilder-Smith, said, "She doesn't think this vaccine is ready before 18 months." He also said that the pandemic "will likely have peaked and decreased before a vaccine is available."
Dr. Gotuzzo also recalls that diseases such as AIDS or malaria have been studied for decades without having a vaccine yet. "It is not as easy as you think, but what you should also look for are medicines. That is what we are doing: investigating which medicines would be potentially useful," he told
OjoPblico. Is there a treatment for Covid-19? This point has also been the subject of controversy, especially from versions that recent studies reveal the apparent efficacy of chloroquine - a compound that has been used since the mid-20th century in the treatment of malaria - to alleviate and even disappear. Covid-19 symptoms.
A version that was circulated through a Google document and was released by some media indicated that a study supported by Stanford University endorsed the findings. Faced with the wave of speculation, the university itself had to pronounce itself to rule out the veracity of the document, which it described as "not legitimate".
"The Stanford School of Medicine was not involved in creating that document, nor has it published a study demonstrating the effectiveness of that drug," said the statement, available on the institution's official website.
According to the Peruvian infectologist Eduardo Gotuzzo, in the first stage of the development of a vaccine it is a matter of identifying the “mechanism of damage caused by the virus, looking for similarities to understand the damage and stopping the immune response”
A verification by The Associated Press to a statement by President Donald Trump in this regard established that it is false that chloroquine has been approved by the FDA, the US agency that regulates the food, medicine and biological products sector.
"Technically, doctors can already prescribe the drug to Covid-19 patients, a practice known as
off-label use . But Trump falsely suggested to reporters that the FDA had just approved the drug specifically for the viral pandemic that is spreading in US communities. That would mean that the drug has met FDA safety and efficacy standards. " The check establishes that this is not true.
A
statement released yesterday by the
US agency reiterated that "there are no FDA-approved therapies or medications to treat, cure or prevent COVID-19 '."
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