Developing the Covid-19 vaccine

[lpm]

My fear is this thread will run for the next few years and the title will never be changed to "How the Covid-19 vaccine was developed".

On the one hand, massive global effort.

On the other, coronaviruses appear to be particularly tricky.

Is it plausible we will have a vaccine by 30 June 2021?

[Gentleman Jim]

There are several in phase 1 trial already and with accelerated status, I believe one will emerge sooner rather than later

[kerrya1]

Obviously any new vaccine needs to be safe but how effective does it need to be to make it worthwhile going for mass production and immunisation programmes?

Providing protection to, lets say, 10% of the population would still cover a lot of people, but would it be enough to to justify the exercise or will it need to be much higher, say 60% before considered worthwhile?

Given that there won't be enough for everybody straight away what is the best priority order to protect the greatest number of people most quickly, I'm assuming different countries will take their own decisions around this although WHO may make recommendations?

[Gfamily]

Obviously any new vaccine needs to be safe but how effective does it need to be to make it worthwhile going for mass production and immunisation programmes?

Providing protection to, lets say, 10% of the population would still cover a lot of people, but would it be enough to to justify the exercise or will it need to be much higher, say 60% before considered worthwhile?

Given that there won't be enough for everybody straight away what is the best priority order to protect the greatest number of people most quickly, I'm assuming different countries will take their own decisions around this although WHO may make recommendations?

For most people, the effects of infection are manageable, so I would see the priority as not to protect the greatest number, but to protect:
- people most at risk of complications
- people most at risk of spreading infections to those at most risk of complications.

but probably the other way around

[Pucksoppet]

Just to nit-pick.

<nit-pick>
The outbreak is COVID-19 (COronaVIrus Disease - 2019)

The virus causing this disease outbreak is SARS-CoV-2 (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome - CoronaVirus - 2)

So the vaccine needs to be against the virus (SARS-CoV-2), not the outbreak (COVID-19).
</nit-pick>

[lpm]

I'll try to remember that.

Particularly when I'm on a hospital trolley and getting 30 seconds with a doctor for the first and last time, me in delirium rambling about the Covid-19 virus and him saying well actually, Covid-19 is the name of the disease you are dying from and the virus you are cursing is in fact called SARS-CoV-2.

[lpm]

Are there vaccines for any other coronaviruses?

There's that cat thing, no vaccine for that. Nor SARS, but perhaps they never tried as it vanished?

And a thing called immune enhancement - the vaccine might trigger a deadly response in the body.

We are all presuming a vaccine in 18 months, but why? Is this a challenge comparable to Apollo or is it more like building a channel tunnel, knowing it can be done but will inevitably take a long time to complete.

[Herainestold]

The PLA has already developed a vaccine that is in the the preliminary stages of testing.

There might be some advantages of using the military as test subjects because you dont have to get the same level of ethical approval. the article does not say if they are testing in humans yet, so I am guessing that is not the case.

Led by PLA major general Chen Wei, the team has now achieved a key progress in developing a vaccine to the novel coronavirus. It includes development of an adenovirus vector vaccine for COVID-19 and a class 1 biological drug with full intellectual property rights, which can be used to treat not only COVID-19 patients, but also people who have been exposed to the virus as an emergency prevention measure, state-run CCTV reported on Tuesday.

"We must strive to bring the vaccine we are working on to clinical trial and application, providing strong technological support for winning this battle," she said.

https://www.defenseworld.net/news/26454 ... 9__Vaccine

[Pucksoppet]

I'll try to remember that.

Particularly when I'm on a hospital trolley and getting 30 seconds with a doctor for the first and last time, me in delirium rambling about the Covid-19 virus and him saying well actually, Covid-19 is the name of the disease you are dying from and the virus you are cursing is in fact called SARS-CoV-2.

Great!

It's important to get ones priorities right, after all. Well done!

[Aitch]

I'll try to remember that.

Particularly when I'm on a hospital trolley and getting 30 seconds with a doctor for the first and last time, me in delirium rambling about the Covid-19 virus and him saying well actually, Covid-19 is the name of the disease you are dying from and the virus you are cursing is in fact called SARS-CoV-2.

I once had a GP who would probably actually have done that. One of the old-school who thought that doctors like themselves were something above the common herd.

[/digression]

[mikeh]

There are several in phase 1 trial already and with accelerated status, I believe one will emerge sooner rather than later

What are the vaccines in phase I trials?

The CEPI portfolio is all pre-clinical (and they're prob the ones being fastracked as much as is reasonably possible), and the ones listed on marketwatch are all pre-clinical.

Moderna appear to have gone straight to humans without the usual animal model stages, bar some nominal experiments on mice.

Any others out there in humans?

[Stephanie]

Moved a post from here to the other covid thread. Keep this one for vaccine development please

[Cardinal Fang]

What to we make of reports that the Trump administration offered a German medical company "large sums of money" for exclusive access to a Covid-19 vaccine, so that the vaccine would be secured for the US only?

CF

[dyqik]

What to we make of reports that the Trump administration offered a German medical company "large sums of money" for exclusive access to a Covid-19 vaccine, so that the vaccine would be secured for the US only?

CF

Entirely unsurprising?

[bjn]

What to we make of reports that the Trump administration offered a German medical company "large sums of money" for exclusive access to a Covid-19 vaccine, so that the vaccine would be secured for the US only?

CF

Entirely unsurprising?

Germany says f.ck right off with that.

[bmforre]

bjn, your link above goes to the Guardian.
I prefer the presentation in the FAZ: In German.

Note cooperation through the vaxprovider alliance Cepi. Cepi was started in 2017 with Angela Merkel and Bill Gates pushing for it.
I find the Guardian often, shall we say:sceptical, towards Bill Gates and his initiatives.

[bjn]

bjn, your link above goes to the Guardian.
I prefer the presentation in the FAZ: In German.

Note cooperation through the vaxprovider alliance Cepi. Cepi was started in 2017 with Angela Merkel and Bill Gates pushing for it.
I find the Guardian often, shall we say:sceptical, towards Bill Gates and his initiatives.

Thanks BM, but I don't read German.

ETA and google translate isn't helping.

[Herainestold]

bjn, your link above goes to the Guardian.
I prefer the presentation in the FAZ: In German.

Note cooperation through the vaxprovider alliance Cepi. Cepi was started in 2017 with Angela Merkel and Bill Gates pushing for it.
I find the Guardian often, shall we say:sceptical, towards Bill Gates and his initiatives.

Thanks BM, but I don't read German.

ETA and google translate isn't helping.

Its behind a pay wall anyway.

[bob sterman]

Not strictly a vaccine issue - but does anyone have an idea when we might get an antibody test?

I assume one will be needed to examine the effectiveness of a vaccine - but knowing who has been infected and recovered could have a major impact on the functioning of critical services and society in general?

[shpalman]

Takis Biotech is about to start animal testing of a vaccine with the possibility of human testing in the autumn.

[KAJ]

Not strictly a vaccine issue - but does anyone have an idea when we might get an antibody test?

I assume one will be needed to examine the effectiveness of a vaccine - but knowing who has been infected and recovered could have a major impact on the functioning of critical services and society in general?

I think, but am not sure, that this thread in Nerd Lab may be relevant SARS-CoV-2 testing

[Lew Dolby]

Also not a vaccine but french news is discussing the idea that chloroquine may be a cure for the virus.

[EACLucifer]

There's quite a few things being considered as mitigation or treatment for this virus. Chloraquine's one of them, and has the advantage of being cheap. There's been discussion of rempresivir, too.

Crucially, anything that's already been approved for something will have a lot less trials to go through. If we already know how it is handled by the human body at what dose and so on, then the only big question is will it reduce the impact of this virus, or work prophylactically against it.

The trials that have already started with vaccine candidates, meanwhile, have to first test that it is safe to give humans the drug at all, before any investigation into efficacy can begin.

[Pucksoppet]

Also not a vaccine but french news is discussing the idea that chloroquine may be a cure for the virus.

Treatment?: that's a possible 'maybe'.
ScienceDirect (2020-03-05): Of chloroquine and COVID-19

Essentially they are politely requesting the Chinese researchers who claim chloroquine works well to release their data, as "this would represent the first successful use of chloroquine in humans for the treatment of an acute viral disease", and while chloroquine works in vitro for several viral diseases, previous trials in vivo (humans) has been equivocal at best, some conditions made worse.

[EACLucifer]

Also not a vaccine but french news is discussing the idea that chloroquine may be a cure for the virus.

Treatment?: that's a possible 'maybe'.
ScienceDirect (2020-03-05): Of chloroquine and COVID-19

Essentially they are politely requesting the Chinese researchers who claim chloroquine works well to release their data, as "this would represent the first successful use of chloroquine in humans for the treatment of an acute viral disease", and while chloroquine works in vitro for several viral diseases, previous trials in vivo (humans) has been equivocal at best, some conditions made worse.

Thanks. I hadn't managed to get the brains together to dig into the details enough, and I suspect a lot of media reports will be wrong for the usual reasons.