Oxford University lab leads global race to find coronavirus vaccine
"A world free of the COVID-19 requires the most massive public health effort in world history," said UN Secretary-General António Guterres in one of his speeches, stressing the need to share data on progress made in this area among nations. "The data must be shared, the production capacity prepared, the resources mobilized, the communities involved and the policy reserved. I know we can do it. I know we can put people first," he said.
A University of Oxford lab is leading the global race to find a drug that protects against the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which is responsible for coronavirus disease. However, more than 100 research projects are currently working to find a vaccine capable of stopping the spread of a disease that affects more than 3 million people worldwide. And at least seven projects have begun clinical trials to test the efficacy and safety of these experimental treatments.
Oxford University scientists have the advantage that they had several studies and vaccine trials under way against different types of coronavirus, and the clinical trials had shown that this treatment was "harmless" to the human species, explained journalist David D. Kirkpatrick in an exclusive report for The New York Times. Thanks to this research, the United Kingdom has become the first country on the European continent to conduct a human trial of a possible coronavirus vaccine.
More than 1000 people between 18 and 55 years old participated in this clinical study to test the effectiveness of this vaccine in the United Kingdom. If this trial goes well, another clinical trial involving more than 5,000 people will take place at the end of next month. Scientists working on this vaccine say that if the effectiveness of this drug is proven, in September the world could have its first coronavirus vaccine.
However, the Oxford research team is not alone in working day and night to find a cure for the virus that is transforming the world as we know it. In March, for example, scientists at the Rocky Mountain Laboratory in Hamilton, Montana inoculated six Rhesus monkeys with single doses of the Oxford vaccine. Just 25 days later the six monkeys were healthy, said Vincent Munster, the researcher who conducted the test and has been quoted in The New York Times. "The rhesus monkey is the closest thing we have to humans," Dr. Munster said. Still, immunity in this type of animal does not guarantee that the vaccine will provide the same degree of protection for humans.
At the same time, two U.S. companies known as Moderna and Inovio have begun clinical trials with technologies based on modifying or manipulating genetic material. At the moment, according to the NYT, they are working on both demonstrating their safety and learning more about the dosage issues and other variables. On the other hand, a Chinese company, CanSino Biologics, has also started clinical trials in China using a methodology very similar to that of the Oxford Institute, with a variety of the same respiratory virus found in humans, not in chimpanzees. The Wuhan Institute for Biological Products, in collaboration with Sinopharm, is researching a vaccine for this virus.
In Spain, several investigations are also being carried out to discover a vaccine capable of eliminating this pathogen. The Minister of Science and Innovation assured at the beginning of April that one of the studies being carried out at the National Center of Biotechnology of the Higher Center of Sociological Research (CNB-CSIC), is "one of the most advanced in the world". The work of this research - led by professors Luis Enjuanes and Isabel Sola - is focused on seven areas: development of vaccines, antiviral treatments, generation of antibodies to neutralize the virus, tests to evaluate seroprotection, analysis of the proteins of the virus to locate areas with therapeutic potential, analysis of the evolution of the infection in society, and image processing of the protein structure of the virus, the Government explained in a statement.
The director of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's vaccine program, Emilio Emini, believes that in the times we are living the most efficient thing would be "to have more than one variety of vaccines in production" for two reasons. On the one hand, to avoid the collapse of companies when it comes to producing them, and on the other hand, because some vaccines can work more efficiently than others in groups such as children or the elderly, he explained to The New York Times. In this sense, he has highlighted that, although these investigations are not successful, the positive aspect of all of them is that we are learning fundamental lessons about the nature of the coronavirus and about the responses of the immune system to this disease.
One of the paradoxes in finding a vaccine for this disease is that, in order to test it and analyse its effectiveness, the number of people infected has to be maintained for a few more weeks. "We are the only ones in the country who want the number of new infections to be maintained in order to test our vaccine," explained Professor Adrian Hill, director of the Jenner Institute and one of the five researchers involved in this research, to the NYT. He said that the methodology used by the Jenner Institute focuses on "altering the genetic code of a known virus". According to this technique, the virus is first modified to neutralize its effects and then to mimic the one the scientists are trying to stop. "Injected into the body, the harmless impostor can induce the immune system to fight and kill the target virus, providing protection," said Professor Hill.
The planned trial of a prototype coronavirus vaccine for the autumn has been announced just three days after the UN, its health agency and leading public and private sector policy makers in some of the countries most affected by the pandemic declared a global partnership to find a cure for the disease and make it accessible to all humanity. The director of the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr. Tedros Adhanom, explained in an official statement that since January they have been working with thousands of researchers around the world. "The world needs these tools and needs them fast. Past experiences have taught us that even when they exist, they have not been equally available to everyone. We cannot allow that to happen," he warned.
The virus - which first appeared in Wuhan, China, in late December - was declared a pandemic a month later. This virus has not only caused an unprecedented global health crisis, but has brought the economies of many countries to the brink and has had a major impact on sectors such as education, employment and tourism.
In this sense, Tedros considers that the global response to find a cure for this disease is "historic". For example, the global vaccine alliance known as GAVI is one of the main bulwarks in the development of key tools to discover the weapon that can end this virus. "We need to design and deliver a vaccine program to obtain billions of doses at a speed and scale never before contemplated, let alone achieved - the fastest deployment of vaccines in history," said Seth Berkley, the alliance's chief executive officer.
The COVID-19 virus understands no borders or social classes. Since its emergence, this pathogen has spread easily, putting the most vulnerable people at risk. The development of a vaccine is essential in order to return to normalcy and avoid such drastic measures as confinement, in cases where there are large peaks of infection, as has happened in Spain, Italy or the United Kingdom. The race for the coronavirus is taking place at a vertiginous speed. More and more research projects are dedicated solely to finding a cure for this disease.
The most recent breakthrough was made by scientists in Seattle, who announced in March that they were ready to conduct the first human trial, a study criticized for skipping the step of pre-testing on animals to prove its safety and efficacy. However, the human clinical trial has been led by the University of Oxford, which in April began conducting such studies. Pharmaceutical giants Sanofi and GSK have also joined the research effort to develop a vaccine, while testing on ferrets has begun in Australia. Be that as it may, these research projects have become our best hope for dealing with this pandemic.