Coronavirus vaccine: the news is important

If Spain is the great sick of Europe with 716,481 infections, and France is now always heading towards a red alert condition, in Germany the government estimates a potential risk for the Christmas period and in England Prime Minister Boris Johnson has recommended working from House. the coronavirus gallops full speed out of Italy, which for now has stayed out of the second wave, so much so that two Nobel laureates in economics, Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, had recommended preventive closures before the Christmas holidays, but any Travel restriction could occur in Europe during the All Saints holidays between the end of October and the beginning of November.

In Italy, infections seem to be increasing but without particular tensions in hospitals: various reasons and municipal administrations are also thinking of introducing the intensive use of masks even outdoors and, in case of a deterioration of the situation, local mini-closures with early closings for bars and restaurants. All waiting for the vaccine, expected as the “silver bullet” that will be able to control the epidemic, allowing to protect the weakest sectors of the population.

Covid vaccine: there is already a Russian and Chinese product

But where is the experimentation with the vaccine? At the moment there are no commercially available vaccines against Sars-CoV-2, although on June 25 the Chinese Central Military Commission approved, for only one year and for military personnel, the use of the vaccine manufactured by Cansino Biological. In Russia, the candidate vaccine from the Gamaleya Institute in Moscow received regulatory approval before completing human trials. But currently, according to findings made by the WHO, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the Nih i vaccine candidates are a total of 249: 19 based on DNA, 32 on RNA, 52 on viral vector, 18 on attenuated or inactivated virus, 77 on protein, 15 on virus-like particles and 36 using other platforms or for which no details are available.

As specified in one approach by the National Institute of Infectious Diseases ‘Lazzaro Spallanzani’, there are 48 candidates in the clinical phase and 9 who have reached the advanced stage of human experimentation. Spallanzani himself collaborates with the Italian companies ReiThera and Takis, which are working on two different platforms to create the largest number of vaccines. The first human trials of the Italian GRAd-Cov2 vaccine produced by ReiThera, with the support of the Ministry of Research with the CNR and the Lazio Region, began in August in Spallanzani and at the Verona Clinical Research Center. While the WHO has launched an international randomized trial of candidate vaccines, called Solidarity, with the aim of coordinating the evaluation of safety and efficacy of candidates in the development phase, with a view to international cooperation and equity of access. Based on currently available information and previous experience on vaccine development times, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) estimates that it may take at least a year before a Covid-19 vaccine is ready for approval and is available at Sufficient quantities to allow widespread use. On the other hand, in the United States the Federal Government has announced a project, called ‘Operation Warp Speed’, aimed at drastically reducing the development time of a new vaccine, in order to have it available to all American citizens (about 300 million dose) at the end of the year or early 2021.

While waiting for a specific vaccine to be reached, decades-old vaccines made with live attenuated viruses are being tested, based on the hypothesis that these may affect the immune system beyond the response to the specific pathogen for which they were achieved, and provides broad-spectrum protection against infectious diseases. The first of these vaccines is Bcg (Bacillus Calmette-Guérin), which has existed for 100 years and continues to be the basic vaccine against tuberculosis; More than 20 research centers and universities around the world are testing this vaccine as a possibility to reduce the risk of contracting Covid-19. In South Africa, a clinical trial has been started with a sample of 500 healthcare workers, half of whom will receive the Bcg vaccine and the other half a placebo. And in Germany, in one of the tests on a new candidate vaccine against tuberculosis, called VPM1002 and based on BCG, its potential efficacy against Sars-CoV-2 is being verified. In the United States, for its part, a research group led by Robert Gallo, one of the discoverers of the HIV virus, plans to verify the efficacy of the oral vaccine Opv against polio, developed by Albert Sabin in 1957 against the coronavirus.

With the flu vaccine, fewer deaths from covid

Finally, research on the supposed effectiveness of the flu vaccine to counteract the effects of the coronavirus is discussed. A study by the Monzino Cardiology Center in Milan showed that in the period of the confinement, the Italian regions with a higher rate of influenza vaccination coverage in the population over 65 years showed fewer infections, fewer hospitalized patients with symptoms, as well as fewer ICU patients and deaths from Covid-19.

The study, published in ‘Vaccines’, therefore, supports the hypothesis that influenza vaccination can help prevent the spread of Covid-19. “We have estimated – explains Mauro Amato, researcher at the Monzino Heart Center and first author of the article – that a 1% increase in vaccination coverage in people over 65 years of age, which is equivalent to approximately 140,000 doses nationwide, could have 78,560 infections, 2,512 hospitalizations, 353 intensive care hospitalizations and 1,989 deaths from Covid-19 avoided. Therefore, it would be important to encourage as far as possible any activity that may lead to an increase in vaccination coverage, especially among those over 65 years of age ”. “In our study – explains Amato – we compared, Region by Region, the vaccination coverage rates in people over 65 years of age with the number of infections and other 3 indices of clinical severity of the disease: the number of hospitalizations due to Covid-19, the number of ICU patients and the number of deaths from the infection All analyzes confirmed that the spread rates and severity of the Sars-CoV-2 virus are inversely proportional to the influenza vaccination rate: fewer vaccines, plus Covid -19 “.

Although more ad hoc studies are needed to confirm the hypothesis, the Lombard Center researchers explain, the study provides an additional scientific basis for the recommendations of all health authorities, starting with the World Health Organization, which urges the population to undergo to the flu shot, especially this year. “The world of cardiology” was, like the others, devastated by the wave of Covid-19 and the lack of vaccines and drugs capable of stopping it prompted us to look for alternatives to respond to the attack of the pandemic “, explains Damiano Baldassare, coordinator of the study, head of the Unit for the study of the morphology and arterial function of Monzino. “In the face of an imminent second viral wave – he continues – we focus on ‘hypotheses, presented by several scientists, about the role of the influenza vaccine reducing the spread of Covid-19. “The flu virus and Sars-CoV-2 have no similar transmission routes – we read at work – and some symptoms in common, but they are very different in severity and mortality in case of infection, and in terms of the age groups affected. The flu, recalls a note, affects mainly children and adolescents, while Covid-19 affects mainly the elderly. A possible explanation could be that the youngest They have a more reactive immune system strengthened by exposure to viral agents or antigens contained in many pediatric vaccines (measles, chicken pox, scarlet fever, rubella, hepatitis B, papilloma virus …). Vaccines can trigger “non-specific” positive immune response mechanisms by enhancing the responsiveness of the immune system as a whole.

“Healthy volunteers infected to accelerate the Covid-19 vaccine”

The alarm about the flu vaccine: for 2 out of 3 people it is not available in pharmacies