A vaccine? A cure?
I've read that this corona virus is a strain of the same virus as the common cold.🤔
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SW-User
They are both corona viruses. SARS-COV-2 is the current one that causes the Covid-19 - within that there are already a lot of strains. Viruses mutate really quickly.
Finding vaccines is very hard work. I worked for a pharmaceutical company for some years. How a vaccine works is that you want to give people a dose of something that causes the body's immune system to believe it is the harm causing virus and produce antibodies. You essentially train the body to effectively attack it.
However there is the problem - finding something that makes the body believe that is it the virus but that is safe to give to people. Normally you try to "kill" (deactivate actually as it's not alive as such) the virus through heat or strong light etc. Or you deliberately encourage mutations of the virus to get a strain that physically is the same but not as harmful. A more modern but unproven method is to genetically make a something again with the same surface but safe to give to people. Most experimental vaccines will fail though as they prove to be ineffective or at times there's concern over their safety.
Corona Viruses mutate rapidly - especially when new in a species (as this one is now) or in other hosts, horseshoe bats in particular are great at creating nasty ones - this one possibly came from them and jumped to us. So even if you get a vaccine you have to get ahead again of it with another version.
If only we could just get the structure of the virus (which we got quickly on this one) and instantly have a vaccine that worked on it. Sadly we're just not that ahead of nature yet.
Finding vaccines is very hard work. I worked for a pharmaceutical company for some years. How a vaccine works is that you want to give people a dose of something that causes the body's immune system to believe it is the harm causing virus and produce antibodies. You essentially train the body to effectively attack it.
However there is the problem - finding something that makes the body believe that is it the virus but that is safe to give to people. Normally you try to "kill" (deactivate actually as it's not alive as such) the virus through heat or strong light etc. Or you deliberately encourage mutations of the virus to get a strain that physically is the same but not as harmful. A more modern but unproven method is to genetically make a something again with the same surface but safe to give to people. Most experimental vaccines will fail though as they prove to be ineffective or at times there's concern over their safety.
Corona Viruses mutate rapidly - especially when new in a species (as this one is now) or in other hosts, horseshoe bats in particular are great at creating nasty ones - this one possibly came from them and jumped to us. So even if you get a vaccine you have to get ahead again of it with another version.
If only we could just get the structure of the virus (which we got quickly on this one) and instantly have a vaccine that worked on it. Sadly we're just not that ahead of nature yet.
Carla · 61-69, F
@SW-User I know they have vaccines for many flu viruses. But this isnt flu. Was there ever a SARS vaccine? I could look that up, I reckon.
SW-User
@Carla The Oxford one that is the basis from the latest one - the first one to get into human trials for Covid
Problem is we don't have enough SARS cases to really need or prove a SARS vaccine works adequately.
There is one of the problems - we don't have enough Covid cases in the UK currently to run substantial vaccine trials. You need it prevalent in the population to prove it. It's a real nightmare developing them frankly esp when the licensing authorities will these days insist on large scale morbidity studies. You just have to wait for enough on your trial to die. I sometimes wonder on the morality of that really.
Problem is we don't have enough SARS cases to really need or prove a SARS vaccine works adequately.
There is one of the problems - we don't have enough Covid cases in the UK currently to run substantial vaccine trials. You need it prevalent in the population to prove it. It's a real nightmare developing them frankly esp when the licensing authorities will these days insist on large scale morbidity studies. You just have to wait for enough on your trial to die. I sometimes wonder on the morality of that really.
Carla · 61-69, F
@SW-User well, me thinks there may be ample death here to have an adequate study.
SW-User
@Carla Sadly it is falling that's for the vaccine testers a bad thing - I know that sounds wrong but it is true. It's like trying to run a study on a heart disease treatment in Greece - there aren't enough patients dying for you to prove yours keeps them alive longer.
SW-User
@Carla @Soossie
Useful document at https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/draft-landscape-of-covid-19-candidate-vaccines
23 currently in some form of human trial and 140 in preclinical evaluation.
Hopefully one or more of them will have a good enough efficacy and safety profile in the next couple of years.
Useful document at https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/draft-landscape-of-covid-19-candidate-vaccines
23 currently in some form of human trial and 140 in preclinical evaluation.
Hopefully one or more of them will have a good enough efficacy and safety profile in the next couple of years.
@SW-User
I know... :(
I know... :(