- Dr Anthony Fauci gave a new update on coronavirus vaccine research and research, explaining why he remains cautiously optimistic about COVID-19 vaccine research.
- The health expert compared COVID-19 and AIDS vaccine research, and explained why a coronavirus vaccine can be done in a year, while HIV vaccines have failed for almost 40 years.
- Fauci said the immune system cannot fight HIV, but it can eliminate the new coronavirus. That process is critical to understanding why researchers aim to develop vaccine candidates and why COVID-19 vaccine research is so promising.
The mobilization of the scientific community during the new coronavirus pandemic is one of the most overlooked battles amid this health crisis. Scientists learned everything they could about the virus early in the pandemic, tracked the DNA of the new virus and proved that the pathogen evolved naturally in animals before it found its first human host. Based on that information, they were able to come up with more than 150 vaccine ideas, many of which are in advanced clinical studies. Others developed therapies to prevent complications and deaths of COVID-19, while even more researchers studied all ways that the virus behaves, proving that face masks work and that the virus can stay in the air for longer periods of time. Thanks to all that speed, we almost certainly have our first COVID-19 faxes this fall. We will know if the vaccines that reach Phase 3 of testing are effective and safe, and we will know when and how immunization campaigns will be structured.
The leader of the fax effort from his position as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is Dr. Anthony Fauci. The health expert continues to say that he is cautiously optimistic about the global efforts for vaccines. The US government is funding several vaccine candidates through its Operation Wars Speed program and has already promised to buy hundreds of millions of doses once they get regular approval. Fauci has now appeared in another interview about the pandemic and he explained exactly why he thinks the world has a good chance of developing a very effective COVID-19 vaccine.
Fauci appeared in a video interview with Brown University on Friday, which was streamed online via YouTube. The health expert was asked if he is sure there will be a vaccine ready by the end of this year or early next year, and that is when Fauci compared the progress of COVID-19 comparison with HIV.
Fauci explained that getting a vaccine for AIDS is “really, very different” compared to a COVID-19 vaccine. It’s all because the human body responds very differently to the HIV and SARS-CoV-2 viruses.
“If you have a disease in which the body’s natural response to infection is not sufficient, then it is very difficult for you to get a vaccine,” he said. “And we have known for 39 years that I have cared for AIDS patients; the body does not produce a naturally good immune response against HIV. ”
He said the purpose of faxes is to do at least as good as the human body. That is the default answer. The immune system cannot fight HIV like it does against the coronavirus, and an AIDS vaccine should do even better.
The novel coronavirus, on the other hand, is a different kind of attacker. “We know the body can give a good response,” Fauci said. ‘And the reason we know is because we have so many people wiping out the virus and doing it right. That the purpose of a vaccine is to do as well, or hopefully better, than natural infection – to introduce a good response. ”
The various COVID-19 vaccine studies that have reached Phase 3 of testing demonstrated that the experimental drugs can induce an immune response that is similar or even better than the immune response of patients who clear and recover the virus. Therefore, Fauci is “cautiously optimistic” about the drugs.
“I developed faxes 36 years ago as director of the Institute,” Fauci said. ‘You should never feel confident when dealing with something that requires a randomized placebo-controlled trial to prove it. What I trust in are data. I am not confident in advising or surmising. But that being said, the reason I feel cautiously optimistic is that when you look at the early reaction, both in the data of the animals, but important in the human phase one. It induces a reaction with neutralizing antibodies that are at least as good, if not better, than the plasma of recovering people, which tells me it’s a good start. ”
The doctor explained that there is no guarantee that any of the drugs in the Phase 3 tears will work. However, he expects concrete answers sometimes in November or December. It could be even earlier than that the number of infections remains high. The more people in a community are infected, the easier it would be for researchers to determine if volunteers from the vaccine trial who are exposed to the virus during life are infected or not.
“I hope the answer is that it is safe and effective, but I can not guarantee it. You can only rely on my cautious optimism, ”he said. The full interview can be seen in the video embedded below.
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