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Coronavirus vaccine: The race to create a cure for COVID-19 - BBC Focus Magazine

Coronavirus vaccine: The race to create a cure for COVID-19 - BBC Focus Magazine

Coronavirus vaccine: The race to create a cure for COVID-19 - BBC Focus Magazine
May 27, 2020 2 mins, 41 secs

But it’s the date that the race to create a coronavirus vaccine began.

“I got the sequence on 10 January and then we spent the weekend deciding what to put in our vaccine,” says immunologist Dr Teresa Lambe, who is one of the vaccine team leaders at the university’s Jenner Institute.

So the sooner we have a vaccine, the quicker certainty can return to our lives.

But a handful have caused serious disease outbreaks: SARS in 2002-2003, MERS from 2012 onwards, and now COVID-19 – the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2.

We don’t yet have an approved vaccine for any coronavirus.

All of the potential COVID-19 vaccines fundamentally achieve this in the same way, by exposing the immune system to the club-shaped protein spikes that cover the virus’s spherical shell.

“Before it goes to clinical trial, every vaccine or drug has to be assessed in animal models,” says Lambe.

“You inject a volunteer with a dose you know is safe from other clinical trials [with similar vaccines],” says Lambe, “and you monitor them carefully for the next two to three days.”.

As well as checking the vaccine is safe, by looking for side effects such as muscle aches and headaches, the researchers will measure the levels of T cells and antibodies in the volunteer’s blood.

If the vaccine looks to be safe and functional, then it’s on to phases II and III.

Phase III will involve 5,000 volunteers aged 18 and over, with half of them receiving the COVID-19 vaccine.

This phase will test whether the vaccine offers protection in the real world, by monitoring the vaccinated individuals and comparing their COVID-19 infection rate to that of those who don’t receive the vaccine in the trial.

Regulatory bodies also need time to check the safety and effectiveness of new vaccines, and even once a vaccine is approved, there’s the potential for a delay while vaccine manufacturers ramp up production.

“You don’t want to start manufacturing stuff until you know it is actually going to work,” says Dr John Tregoning, an expert in respiratory infections and vaccine development at Imperial College London.

Most estimates put COVID-19 vaccines as being available in a year to 18 months – an incredible feat as it typically takes 10 or more years to develop a vaccine and get it approved.

So the more different vaccines there are, the quicker you can get a vaccine to people.”?

When a vaccine for SARS-CoV-2 is developed, it will initially be in limited supply as production is ramped up.

“I doubt that in a year we’re going to see this given to you and me,” says Dr Maria Bottazzi, part of a team developing a COVID-19 vaccine at Baylor University in Texas.

Taking a global view, there’s also the question of how evenly the COVID-19 vaccine will be distributed between countries.

During the 2009 H1N1 (swine flu) pandemic, rich countries placed advance orders with vaccine manufacturers, leaving poorer nations less well supplied.

There are also concerns that vaccine makers in developing countries will struggle to make COVID-19 vaccines if the first ones to be approved use newer technologies.

These are all questions that will have to be addressed as we get closer to an approved vaccine.

Summarized by 365NEWSX ROBOTS

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