Pan coronaviruses and intranasal vaccines (useful for stopping variants and infections) are at stake: there is a lack of money, materials and political will. Furthermore, the fact that most of the population has already come into contact with Covid makes studies difficult to do
The debate on fourth dose
but, above all, on how to continue living with Covid starting from the next one Autumn bustles. The experimentation of better vaccines that can apply to all coronaviruses and variants does not proceed and also up-to-date vaccines they don’t convince altogether, so much so that the possibility of continuing to use those already in use is not so remote. Here’s why.
Vaccines updated, but old?
The efficacy of vaccines that are studying updates based on Omicron (those with RNA) is good in the studies that are published, but the candidates are based on Omicron 1, currently almost disappeared (in Italy at 0.8%). The question that experts and regulatory bodies ask themselves then: is it worth facing costs and using resources to update a vaccine that is likely to be born already old? And what to decide about infections, given that the vaccines in use still protect well from severe disease, but little from transmission and updating would not change this situation?
Some scientists push for the development of better and universal vaccines, i so-called pan-coronavirusvalid against all types of coronaviruses, and / or nasal oneswhich would directly prevent the contagion and the continuous spread of Covid in the world.
A summit at the White House
To discuss these important issues on July 26, White House officials gathered scientists, pharmaceutical executives and public health experts at a summit in an effort to chart a path towards creating better vaccines. The two needs underlying the previous reasoning have been expressed from many sides: given that chasing each new variant with a new booster does not seem like a sustainable (and healthy) strategy, what is needed are new generation vaccines that induce a protection wider and more durable against variants known and future, the so-called pan coronaviruses, but also inhalable vaccines new generation that create a nasal barrier that blocks the transmission of the virus.
According to the meeting report provided on Science signed by Jon Cohen, at the top was not brought, for, any request for funding specific to Congress, nor any concrete plan that could somehow be configured as the one that led the United States government to develop the first Covid vaccines in record time in 2020.
The problems on the table
The problems aren’t just about funding in general: Science denounce the shortage of materials needed to produce vaccines, lack of primates on which to test the candidates and the shortage of lipid shells necessary to enclose and protect RNA. In addition, there is an unusual complication caused by the peculiar situation due to the pandemic: when the first Covid vaccines were tested, people did not have specific immunity to SARS-CoV-2, as it must be to evaluate the effectiveness of the tested product. . Today most people in the world have been vaccinated, infected with the virus, or both. Apart from small children. How to conduct the experiments then? How to evaluate the results excluding this variable? In addition to funding and technical difficulties, there is also a certain lack of interest, or rather, the sense of urgency has been lost, says Florian Krammer, a virologist at the Icahn School of Medicine of Mount Sinai.
BA.5 in Italy at 86%
Therefore, today there are a few dozen attempts to create vaccines that protect against all variants and all four genera of the coronavirus family, but only one candidate, developed by theAmerican armyentered a clinical trial of Phase 1. As reported Sciencein the test-tube studies the vaccine developed by Kayvon Modjarrad and colleagues of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) neutralized a wide range of variants of SARS-CoV-2. The road, however, is still long and in the meantime the virus continues to mutate and spread.
In Italy the sub-variant Omicron 5 grows (responsible for the current wave), now predominant, e c
A single sequence of BA.2.75 also appearsthe sub-lineage of Omicron 2 renamed by the social Centaurus (we wrote about it WHO
), which some think could be the new variant capable of imposing itself. what emerges from the data released by the Higher Institute of Health (Iss) for the last available sampling week (18-24 July). The percentages are: Omicron 100%, of which BA.5 86%, BA.4 11.6%, BA.2 1.6%, BA.1 0.8%.
July 31, 2022 (change July 31, 2022 | 11:23)
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