Skip to main content

Vaccine for COVID-19: What you need to know

What You Need to Know about the COVID-19 Vaccine


    With many states beginning to reopen after three months of shelter-in-place orders, people are anxious to get back to normal state of living and put the coronavirus behind them. However, none of this is possible without effective protection against the virus. Vaccines are the solution to this problem. During flu season, many people will receive vaccination shots to prevent sickness from the flu. A vaccine created to prevent COVID-19 will act similarly and is the best hope for ending the pandemic. Currently, no vaccine has been made to prevent COVID-19 but scientists and researchers are working hard to develop a vaccine. Here's what you need to know about the vaccine for COVID-19.

What is a Vaccine and How Will it Help

    When you become exposed to a disease or infection, your body's immune system creates antibodies to fight off the viruses/bacteria. Vaccines contain weakened or dead viruses/bacteria. This convinces your immune system to create antibodies to fight them off. When the real viruses/bacteria from the disease invades your body, your immune system will know how to react and prevent you from becoming sick. An effective vaccine is weak enough to not cause any sickness but strong enough to provoke the immune system. Creating a vaccine for the coronavirus will slow down the spread of the virus and decrease the amount of people getting sick and dying. 

Steps to Develop a Vaccine and How Long it will Take

    Before a vaccine is allowed to be used widely, the vaccine must go through a series of tests to ensure that it is effective and safe for public use. Going through these procedures can often take a long time. The stages of developing a vaccine generally follow this process:

  1. Exploratory Stage: Finding something that can treat/prevent the disease, assuming that we know nothing/very little about the disease. Usually lasts 2-4 years 
  2. Pre-clinical Stage: Lab and animal testing to see how and if the vaccine will work. If the vaccine makes it past this point (most don't), the FDA will sign off and allow the vaccine to move onto its next stage. Usually lasts 1-2 years.
  3. Clinical Testing: A three-phase process of testing in humans. Generally, 1/3 of vaccines make it from phase I to final approval
    1. Phase I: Involves less than 100 people. Usually 1-2 years
    2. Phase II: Several hundred people. At least 2 years
    3. Phase III: Thousands of people. Usually 3-4 years
  4. Review and Approval: The FDA and CDC reviews data from clinical trial and signs off
  5. Manufacturing: Vaccine goes in production 
  6. Quality Control: Scientists and government agencies regulate who gets the vaccine and the drug development process.
    The stages to developing a vaccine are a long and painstaking process. Many practices and regulations must be followed to ensure that the vaccine is safe and effective in humans. This can take a long time. However, the timeline described above only represents a general scenario. For special cases like the coronavirus, the time to develop a vaccine can be significantly shortened with scientists around the world all working to find a vaccine. Many companies are already in the process of developing vaccines and provide hope for an upcoming solution. 

Current COVID-19 Vaccine Research

    SARS-CoV-2 or the current coronavirus, only recently surfaced towards the end of 2019. However, COVID-19 is closely related to illnesses including the common cold, severe acute respiratory syndrome or SARS, and Middle East respiratory syndrome or MERS. Vaccine development can take years but this time, scientists aren't starting from scratch. Previous research on MERS and SARS vaccine has played a significant role in helping scientists develop a COVID-19 vaccine. Many companies and agencies have already begun the clinical testing stage for their vaccines. According to clinicaltrials.gov, there are a total of 105 ongoing clinical trials for the coronavirus. Below is a figure displaying different companies and organizations working on the COVID-19 trials. 

Conclusion

    The process to develop and approve a vaccine against COVID-19 takes a long time and could be at least a couple years. However, there is hope that this time could be shortened.  Many companies and agencies are actively working with each other around the world and currently have vaccines now undergoing clinical trials. 

Sources

  1. Nazario, Brunilda. “Coronavirus (COVID-19) Vaccine: How Long Will Finding a Vaccine Take?” WebMD, WebMD, 26 May 2020, www.webmd.com/lung/covid-19-vaccine#1-3.

  2. “Get the Facts about a COVID-19 (Coronavirus) Vaccine.” Mayo Clinic, Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, 8 May 2020, www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/in-depth/coronavirus-vaccine/art-20484859.

  3. “Coronavirus Observatory.” ICON Plc, www.iconplc.com/services/clinical-research-services/covid-19/coronavirus/.

  4. “Search of: SARS-CoV+Infection - List Results.” Home - ClinicalTrials.gov, clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?cond=SARS-CoV%2BInfection.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Efficacy of Masks

Do Wearing Masks Really Prevent Coronavirus            For weeks, U.S. health authorities discouraged healthy Americans from wearing masks, believing they would do more harm than good. However, other countries such as China and South Korea have required all citizens to wear a mask when entering a public setting to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. But really how effective are these masks against the coronavirus? On April 3rd, Nature Medicine published an article describing their findings based off an experiment testing the efficacy of surgical face masks against coronavirus, influenza virus and rhinovirus.   Study Findings      Their results demonstrated that surgical masks were largely effective in reducing coronavirus transmission through respiratory droplets as well as aerosol particles. Three out of ten people who did not wear a mask were infected with the coronavirus through droplet particles. Out of eleven people w...
1 comment
Read more

Breakthrough Infections

 COVID-19 Breakthrough Infections     As of August 2021, a little over 50% of the U.S. population has been fully vaccinated against COVID-19. However, despite the increasing number of vaccinated individuals and high efficacy of the vaccines, rare breakthrough cases have occurred. With the reports of breakthrough cases, or instances when people who are fully vaccinated get infected with COVID-19, many questions have arisen. How common are breakthrough infections? What are the symptoms? How severe are the cases? These questions are addressed in a peer-reviewed study investigating breakthrough cases among healthcare workers in Israel. The study was recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine on July 28, 2021.  About the Study     The study setting took place in the Sheba Medical Center, which is the largest medical center in Israel staffed with 12,586 healthcare workers. By April 28, 2021, 11,453 workers (91%) had been fully vaccinated with the ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Plasma for COVID-19 treatment

FDA Authorizes Plasma for COVID-19 Treatment                     COVID-19, which has been spreading across the globe since March, has affected the lives of Americans for over six months. Many people, including the President, are eager to eliminate the virus after a dreadful 6 months of rising cases and quarantine. To their dismay, hopes of eliminating the virus by Easter and then by August, seemed to turn into an unreachable dream for Americans. With cases rising and no sure vaccine or treatment for the virus, a future without COVID-19 seemed further and further away. Yet, this Sunday on August 23, 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized the first treatment for COVID-19: convalescent plasma. While the plasma has only been authorized for emergency use, many people see this authorization as progress towards eliminating the virus. However, others believe that the plasma is not as effective, and that the FDA was pres...
Post a Comment
Read more