COVID-19 VACCINE

The Coronavirus; scientifically known as COVID-19, defined by the WHO, is an infectious disease caused by the Coronavirus family of viruses that cause illnesses in both animals and humans. It was first discovered in Wuhan, China, and later swept the whole world by its feet; affecting the economy and infrastructure. As the world battles with this pandemic, several countries have been scrambling to create a revolutionary vaccine to bring an end to this virus. Although, the question that remains at hand is the following: how have we made so much progress in such a short amount of time?

Typically, vaccines take two-to-five years of discovery and research which later on take 10 or more years to develop. The fastest vaccine to get licensed worldwide was the mumps vaccine which took 4 years. There are essentially 5 steps to get a vaccine approved globally. First are the preclinical testings where the vaccine is given to animals. Then, the next few steps attend to the human population which involves phases 1-3; in the phase one safety trials, a small pool of people receive a small dosage intended to test out the immune system; in phase two expanded trials, the vaccine is given to people groups in a pool of less than a thousand to see how it reacts differently; and in the phase three efficacy trials, the vaccine is given to thousands of people to see if it protects against the virus. The last step is where regulators in each country review the results and decide to approve it or not. Currently, many organizations and companies have already reached phase three of testing in less than a year; this is due to a number of factors like the genome release in 2020, a high influx of money for research, the familiarity of the disease, and the type of infection that COVID-19 brings.

Here are the factors that that speed up the vaccine research and production:

1. Genome Release

   1. Back in January of 2020, many groups such as The Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center & School of Public Health released the coronavirus genome from a case during the Wuhan Outbreak. It is believed that this began the sprint to develop a vaccine; scientists had a basis to begin the pursuit of a cure.

2. Money

   1. Because of the massive impact that the virus brought on at an early age, it was not difficult to find companies, foundations, and investors to provide funds for research; many provided millions and billions into the hunt for a vaccine. Not only does the money go into creating the vaccine, but it is also to get the vaccine manufactured so it may be accessible for the public.

3. Familiar family

   1. The coronavirus family is familiar amongst many scientists; this made it easy to organize projects and accommodate research to attend to this specific infection. Many of the scientists who are working towards a cure had previously been on teams that worked on the SARS and MERS outbreaks. “What really helped was the knowledge gained from the SARS-1 infection,” said Rama Rao Amara, an immunologist and vaccine researcher at Emory University. The SARS-1 infection highlighted a section of the coronavirus called the Spike Protein which created a basis for what the vaccine aims to target.

4. Acute infection

   1. Coronavirus is an acute infection which means that its symptoms develop rapidly, and it tends to run its course quickly; bringing resolution within days. COVID-19 is an infection that will mostly resolve on its own which means that there is an immune response that can kill the disease that a vaccine can bring rise to. This ultimately facilitates the creation of the vaccine as it is not a chronic infection like HIV where there is no natural immune response that can kill the virus.

Although a lot remains to be seen, this serves as an example of a large amount of progress science has made in order to provide quick responses to deadly situations.