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Scientists are currently working on creating about 77 coronavirus vaccines, including 6 that have reached at least the first stage of human trials.
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It is good that the virus does not show important mutations that hinder the effectiveness of the vaccine, however, the first COVID-19 vaccines will not be ready for use on a large scale before 18 months. Some of them may be ready in the fall of this year, but only certain groups of patients will have access, including healthcare workers who are constantly exposed to the virus.
Vaccines cannot come sooner because authorities must ensure they are safe and not just effective against the vaccine.
But there is an idea to speed up the bold and dangerous investigation of the Corona virus, as some legislators and scientists believe that vaccine candidates with voluntary knowledge can be given the SARS-CoV-2 virus to see if the vaccine is effective for generate an immune response and prevent infection. This type of study is called a “challenge experience” and was done before, as The Hill explains.
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The problem with COVID-19 is that researchers will have to infect a few hundred healthy young volunteers with the virus, and that only some of them will receive the vaccine, while others will receive a placebo in order to compare the results.
Such a study requires isolation of patients before the vaccine is applied to ensure that no person is truly infected. They should then be isolated while administering the vaccine, and during the COVID-19 recovery period, scientists should perform routine tests and monitor the development of each patient.
The problem is the idea that COVID-19 can kill young and healthy patients as well as the elderly, and there is no cure for that. Even if patients agree to participate in such a study and know exactly what the consequences will be, they can end the experience as a death sentence, especially since there is no guarantee that the vaccine will be effective.
A website called 1 Day Sooner is now ready to support vaccine challenge trials, with the participation of nearly 3,500 people from 52 countries.
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As the number of vaccine candidates increases rapidly, these challenge trials will not be possible for all of the proposed drugs. Having to isolate hundreds of people for weeks for each vaccine challenge test would deprive hospitals of the resources that could be used to treat common patients with COVID-19.
The latest good news about virus vaccines comes from China, where monkeys were given the virus after a candidate vaccine. The monkeys were not infected or had only mild symptoms, depending on the dose of the vaccine.
The same type of study can be applied to humans if this difficult study idea is approved. But even with this specific drug, which is now in the early stages of testing, it is still too early to know whether it will work in humans.
The Hill revealed that 35 members of the US House of Representatives. USA Led by Democratic Representative Bill Foster they wrote to the Food and Drug Administration to support the idea, saying: “Our situation in this epidemic is similar to war, where there is a long tradition of volunteers who risk their health and live on dangerous missions. while they are Willing to do this to help save the lives of others. “
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And it’s not just politicians who think the idea of trying to challenge is justified. Scientists, including vaccine scientist Stanley Plotkin who helped invent the measles vaccine, support this bold and dangerous idea.
New York University scientist Plotkin and bioethicist Arthur Kaplan wrote an essay to support the idea. Similarly, Mark Lipsic, a Harvard professor, co-authored an article in the Journal of InfectiousDiseases to support the idea.
The United States Food and Drug Administration is currently resisting this idea. “The United States Food and Drug Administration is exploring all possible options to maximize efficiency in developing safe and effective vaccines that prevent COVID-19,” said agency spokesman Michael Wilberbaum. He added: “Human challenge studies, if used in the development of the COVID-19 vaccine, may present feasibility and ethical problems that can be avoided using animal models.”
Source: New York Post
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