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SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus vaccine is being developed by many researchers. But so far none of them can boast of success. Why is this happening and what do the scientists themselves say?
And a month has not passed since the moment when Chinese scientists deciphered the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus genome and presented this information to researchers around the world. After that, many pharmaceutical companies and research centers immediately began to work. Since then, the number of laboratories working on a vaccine against the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has grown so much that all of them cannot be counted.
Who is developing the coronavirus vaccine
In addition to major research centers, such as the Institute for the Control and Prevention of Viral Diseases in Mainland China, scientists from Hong Kong, the USA, Germany, France, Australia, Canada and Israel are actively developing a vaccine against coronavirus. Many of these projects are supported by CEPI, an international epidemic association funded by public funds and private donations.
CEPI is currently allocating money for projects to develop a vaccine against the coronavirus of the German company CureVac and two American ones - Inovio and Modern, as well as scientific developments of the University of Queensland in Australia, which have already been tested on animals since the end of February.
These projects are also supported by the American companies Dynavax and Glaxo Smith Kline, which are developing adjuvants, a complex of substances used to enhance the immune response when administered simultaneously with the immunogen.
In addition to CEPI-funded projects, US companies Johnson & Johnson and Novavax, French Sanofi and Canadian VIDO-InterVac7 also announced their own development of a coronavirus vaccine. A number of universities are involved in research aimed at developing a vaccine: in Germany, Hong Kong, Israel, Canada, and the UK.
When will the coronavirus vaccine be developed
Certain expert groups declare their ambitious goals to develop the vaccine in a couple of weeks. German scientists are critical of such statements. Epidemiologist Alexander Kekule, who heads the Institute of Medical Microbiology at the University Hospital in Halle, believes that the coronavirus vaccine will not be available on the pharmaceutical market until 2021. “We won’t have a vaccine until the fall of 2020,” Kekule predicts. And it points to difficulties in developing a vaccine against coronaviruses, since their genomes are subject to rapid changes.
This is confirmed by a study by Chinese scientists who found that there are two types of SARS CoV-2 coronavirus: s-COV strain and l-Cov-2 strain. The first one is much more common, the second is much more dangerous. The coronavirus genomes undergoing changes are the reason that there is still no vaccine against the usual, seasonal viruses that cause colds. By the way, they are also coronaviruses, but less dangerous than SARS-CoV-1, SARS-CoV-2 and MERS.
SARS-CoV-2 vaccine development - safety is more important than speed
The accelerated development and launch of a vaccine against coronavirus on the pharmaceutical market, as was the case with the Ebola virus, cannot be expected, because coronavirus is much less dangerous. Therefore, the issue of urgency is less relevant. But widespread vaccination of the population means that many healthy people will receive a vaccination from coronavirus. And in this case, unlike the Ebola virus, as risk assessments showed, it is better not to rush with the use of the vaccine.
How should the coronavirus vaccine work
All components of the coronavirus vaccine are based on existing ones. Some of them are used in veterinary medicine. For example, a vaccine against MERS is used to treat camels.
Many pharmaceutical campaigns are betting on a vaccine that helps the body produce non-hazardous viral proteins. The immune system must respond to them. It produces antigens that fight dangerous coronaviruses. Such a vaccine, if ever developed, can be produced quickly and in large quantities.
Other manufacturers rely on direct administration of viral strains to patients. This is a traditional way of protecting against infectious diseases. It cannot be ruled out that the coronavirus vaccine will appear after the pandemic is stopped. But it may be that others will follow the first wave of coronavirus. When spring begins in the northern hemisphere and viruses die, an epidemic can begin in the southern hemisphere, where cold weather sets in. And in the fall, erupt again where the colder climate.
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