Teacher. Kasiulevičius spoke about the period in which it will be necessary to get vaccinated again: suggests thinking about the production of vaccines in Lithuania

“The fall season and cold weather can lead to a jump in vaccine resistant strains, so vaccine renewal (creating effective vaccines against the N501Y, E484Q, E484K, L452R, P681R, K417N, K417T mutations ) and vaccinating people at risk groups and individuals during the influenza season at least ONE dose in September-October can be very important to create long-term immune protection, ”wrote V. Kasiulevičius on Facebook.

Professor Delfi explained that when speaking of the need to revaccinate, he refers to all those who were vaccinated at least six months before that moment, regardless of the type of vaccine.

“Immunity may be for a year, but vaccination in the fall is likely to be needed to protect people during a new outbreak, which will likely occur in November-December,” Kasiulevičius said.

In his post on Facebook, the professor advanced another idea.

“Production of mRNA vaccines in Lithuania or cooperation in this field with Poland or Germany could help to solve long-term problems of protecting the population,” wrote V. Kasiulevičius.

He sent the question whether Lithuania could do it to another interlocutor.

“Talk to Bumelis,” said V. Kasiulevičius.

Do not believe that the idea “from space”

Vladas Bumelis, Lithuanian scientist and businessman and director of Northway Biotech, does not believe that the idea of ​​producing coronavirus vaccines in Lithuania is “from space”.
On the contrary, in his opinion, they should do so and join the management of this pandemic.

“You need those who want us to start doing those vaccines and they say they don’t have the capacity to come and say, ‘We lack the capacity. Help us make those vaccines. “

We don’t have those vaccine technologies. We have to get this technology, be it from one company, another or a third party, and do it in Lithuania, ”said V. Bumelis.

The businessman did not reject the idea that Lithuanians themselves could create vaccines. He just didn’t offer to hope for a miracle that the result will be immediate.

“Can we create these vaccines ourselves? Yes, we can do that. But it will not be the case that we believe them in one day. But we really can. We make not only vaccines, but also drugs, there are such monochrome antibodies. I have a joint project with a Swiss company. We do everything, everything in this world advances. Dear prof. Kasiulevičius is smart, I love and respect him very much, but his idea is definitely not new, “said V. Bumelis.

He admitted that he himself was not involved in the development of a new vaccine.

“I really don’t work. I am not such a famous scientist. In Lithuania, they are full. I am such a simple, hard-working person. I work on jobs if someone entrusts them to me. I am not involved in visions and philosophies,” said V. Bumelis.

Asked what he should come and say specifically about the need, the entrepreneur even presented various scenarios.

“It just came to our attention then. It can be coordinated through the Government of the Republic of Lithuania. It can be coordinated through the Ministry of Economy and Innovation. It can be coordinated through the Ministry of Health. Someone has to worry about that, just Vladas Algirdas Bumelis? VA Bumelis cares, but not only he should probably care, “said the interlocutor excitedly.

According to the Alfa.lt portal, the European Commission (EC) received prof. Mr Bumel’s letter proposing to contribute to the production of COVID-19 vaccines in the EU. The EC is developing a network of vaccine and drug manufacturers.

Sparrow: there are already strong players on the market

Aurelija Žvirblienė, a professor at the Vilnius University Life Sciences Center, believes that there is scientific potential for vaccine development in Lithuania, but doubts that such a large process is worth starting when there are already strong players on the market. .

“The scientific potential would be, but we must not forget that the development of vaccines is something very specific. So far we have not had such traditions. Technically, this would result in who would create the components of the vaccines. But after all, the main work with a vaccine candidate is its examination, clinical trials, preclinical studies. There is no experience in Lithuania to develop and test the vaccine.

In the world, the companies they lead are all very strong players. Unless Moderna was relatively new. But he has also been working in the field of RNA technologies for several years, ”said A. Žvirblienė.

The researcher was open to the idea that new vaccines could be developed in at least a few years.

“Now we see that there are vaccines that have proven to be very successful. For example, RNA technology can be a new platform for vaccine development in general. All those big players are involved in those processes.

The greatest need for vaccines is right now. Will the same need persist for another three years? We think it may be necessary to vaccinate against new variants, but those big players have already introduced factories, they already have a proven platform, I find it hard to imagine how Lithuania would suddenly jump here and say: “here, we are also trying to create”, said A Sparrow .

Lithuanians contribute to the production of vaccine components

The interviewee said that Vilnius University researchers and the companies they founded have already developed viral antigens using genetic engineering methods.

“These are components of a recombinant vaccine that can be used in protein vaccines. This is the S protein of the virus and the part of that protein responsible for intrusion into the cell (RBD domain) ”, said A. Žvirblienė.

According to the researcher, there are foreign companies that are interested in these proteins with the intention of using them as components of vaccines.

“As I said, technically it would not be difficult to create an initial version of the candidate vaccine in one format or another, but it seems to me that it is not very realistic to bring it to the end, to the vaccine, with all the checks,” said A. Žvirblienė.

He also recalled that Thermo Fisher Scientific Baltics, a company operating in Lithuania, is involved in the vaccine development process.

“Because they make the components that make up RNA vaccines,” said A. Žvirblienė.

According to the researcher, it is unknown which companies have ordered these components. The company itself does not disclose this. RNA platform vaccines are generally known to be manufactured by Pfizer / BioNTech, Moderna, and the CureVac vaccine is also close to registration.

“The company operating in Lithuania supplies very important components: building blocks that make up the RNA molecule and enzymes that are used for the production of RNA,” said A. Žvirblienė.