StemCell Therapy

Multiple companies around the world arepreparing vaccines forimmunisationagainst COVID-19. While researchers are some timeoff from completion, a lot more progress has been made than wasexpected.

Speaking at the Ministry of Healths virtual media conference today,Professor of Molecular Genetics and Virology at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Centre, Dr Christine Carrington, shed extra light ona fewmain companies which have made significant strides in vaccine development.

Theres a lot in the pipeline, things are progressing at an unprecedented rate but there is still uncertainty and a lot of work to be done. Even if phase three trials identify a safe and effective vaccine that goes into production this year, it is likely to be 12 to 18 months before it would be ready for wide administration, she said.

Dr Carrington says thatin the event ofre-infectionwithout a vaccine, the human body pays specific attention to how it was initially able tofight off the virus so that it can employ similar measures again.

Afteran infection with a given virus, the immune system remembers what it learnt about how to protect the body against that specificvirus so if it encounters that same virus again, it can go into action much more quickly and prevent the infection from taking hold or at least prevent it from causing illnessor from spreading to other people, she explained.

This is what doctors refer to as immunity. Depending on the virus, it can last forever or for a period of months or years.

Vaccines relation to this process is that they contain a component which resembles the virus but will not cause actual infection. This way, if an immune system encountersthe virus, it will already have a reaction prepared due to its familiarity similar to infection and re-infection.

The Professor explained that theres a lot to consider in the decision to employ any specific vaccine; she says its a lengthy process that has to be carefully attended to.

Carrington believes this process is exactly why its important for multiple vaccines to be developed togive populations a better chance at accessing them in a timely fashion.

There is a concerted effort to put certain processes in place to allow rapid dissemination of the vaccine to both developed and developing countries and the pharmaceutical companies involved have committed to doing that at cost during the pandemic period, shesaid.

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COVID-19 vaccines: Progress being made, but still a long way to go - Loop News Trinidad and Tobago

This entry was posted on June 13, 2020 at 12:46 pm and is filed under Molecular Genetics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |