greetings, friends!
India has now jumped onto rank 3 in the world, with regard to the total number of coronavirus cases
That is, India has seen the most number of corona virus cases after USA and Brazil
There is no doubt about the fact that there is an urgent need for a vaccine for COVID 19
The sooner a vaccine is developed, the more people we would be able to save
But how soon can a vaccine be developed?
Baba Ramdev has already launched his treatment: Coronil- which promises 100% recovery within 7 days
This is what he claims
A lot of controversy ensued and several questions were raised
An FIR was also lodged against Baba Ramdev regarding this
and Coronil has even been banned in some states
On the other hand, Indian Council of Medical Research has been hoping that by 15th August,
that is, by our Independence day,
India will launch the world's first made in India COVID 19 vaccine
Is it realistically possible?
And what is the status of COVID 19 vaccine in the rest of the countries?
Come, let us find out about all these things in today's article
As always, let us begin with the basics first
What are vaccines and how do they work?
Vaccines are basically something like a "mock exam"
Before you write the board exams, you first appear for the pre-boards
in order to prepare yourself well for the real board exam
So, vaccines are these "pre-board" exams
What happens is that when a virus enters your body to infect it,
Actually, not a virus, I would use the word "pathogen"
"Pathogen" includes everything- virus, bacteria, protozoa and all the disease causing microbes
Normally, when pathogens attack/infect our body, then our immune system responds
Our immune system has three main jobs
The first is detecting these pathogens
Second- to remove these pathogens from our body and wage a war against them
This is done by the White blood cells within our body
You could consider the White blood cells to be the personal army of our body
They fight the pathogen and remove them from the body
And when this happens, then our body starts showing symptoms
For example, fever, cough and cold
All these symptoms show that our body is fighting against this virus and is removing it from the body
that it is trying to remove the pathogen from our body
White blood cells release antibodies against the pathogens in order to do this
The third job of the immune system is to memorize
That is, to remember how to react and fight against a pathogen that it has already encountered once
Vaccines prepare our bodies beforehand, just like a mock exam
It helps the body in recognizing the pathogen and in creating a memory of how to fight it and remove it from the body
So that when that pathogen actually enters the body, then our body is already prepared to fight it
and there is already a stored memory of how to generate an antibody against it and remove it from the body
So that our immune system is able to fight the pathogen more effectively and within a shorter span of time
due to vaccines
Now, you could ask what is it in the vaccines that it prepares our body to fight?
The answer to this is quite simple
Very often, the pathogen itself is present in the vaccine, albeit in different states
In some vaccines, the pathogen is killed and its dead body is present in it
Sometimes, the pathogen is weakened and is present in the vaccine
Sometimes, the pathogen is cut into fragments and some of its parts are present inside the vaccine
So, there are different kinds of vaccines that can be made
and each of them have their own pros and cons
If the vaccine is developed by weakening the pathogen, without killing it entirely,
then this type of vaccine is called "live attenuated vaccine"
This type of vaccine is used against diseases like small pox and chicken pox
Its pros include the fact that it is extremely effective
Its cons include the fact that it takes a very long time to develop
On the other hand, if a vaccine is developed by killing a pathogen and by using its dead body,
then this type of vaccine is called "inactivated vaccine"
This type of vaccine is used against flu, polio and rabies
Its disadvantage is that it does not provide a very strong, long lasting immunity
Their doses need to be repeated
For example, if you were administered the polio vaccine, then it would have been repeated year after year
This is its disadvantage
The third type of vaccine makes use of the different fragments of the pathogen
This type of vaccine is called a "subunit vaccine"
which is used in the vaccines against Hepatitis B and HBV vaccines
These are the three general categories of vaccines. There are even more types of vaccines
All I'm trying to do here is to provide you with a general overview
There have been very few human achievements or technology that has saved human lives in the numbers that vaccines have
It's hard to believe, but around 250 years ago, in the 1700s, before the invention of vaccines,
the child mortality rate of children under 5 years was around 40-50%
That is, 200 years ago, if a woman gave birth to a child,
then there would be a 50% chance that the child would die before it reached the age of 5
This rate of child mortality has fallen below even 1% in developed countries today
So you can imagine the number of lives that have been saved due to these vaccines
So, now a question arises- How long does it take to develop a vaccine?
The answer to this is that it normally takes around 10 years
But the speed with which work has been progressing on the COVID19 vaccine, experts say that
keeping this speed in mind, the vaccine might be developed within one to one and a half years
The fastest vaccine to have ever been made was that of mumps which took around 5 years to develop
On the other hand, there is an HIV vaccine, which has not been developed until now
It is being predicted that it would be ready by 2030
It would have taken 50 years to develop if it is ready by 2030!
This is how long it can take to develop vaccines
There are three main stages in the preparation of a vaccine
The first is the research stage where the scientists research to find out
the different ways in which the vaccine could be developed
Should they develop a live attenuated vaccine or something else?
Which option is safer, which is not?- All of this is researched upon
The second stage is the testing stage
where the effectiveness and the safety of the vaccine chosen is tested
Within the testing stage, there are different stages- The first is pre-clinical trials
These are those trials where testing is done on cells within a laboratory or on animals
The vaccine is tested on animals first to see whether the vaccine is effective and safe or not
Following which, testing on humans commence. These tests are called clinical trials
There are four different phases in the clinical trials
Very few people are tested upon in the first phase to test its effectiveness and safeness
In the second phase, a few hundred people are tested upon for a few months
To study the dosage that needs to be administered and what the intensity of the vaccine is against the pathogen
In the third phase, it is tested upon thousands of people
and then measure the safety it provides on a large scale
and whether there are any side effects of the vaccine or not
The third phase can take years because the testing needs to be done for a long period of time
If the vaccine is administered today and it is observed that it is working very effectively in the short term,
but it could so happen that the administration of the vaccine might lead to very harmful effects one year later
What would happen then?
This is why it needs to be tested for a long time. The side effects need to be monitored in the long term
It is sent for approval in phase 4.
The government will provide a license and you will be allowed to manufacture the vaccine
and then sell it to the people because it turned out to be effective
Then comes the manufacturing stage
The approval has been granted and now factories need to be set up to produce the vaccine on a mass scale
and to deliver it to as many people as soon as possible
This stage is not easy either. Because a lot of capital is required to set up a factory
And the procedure to manufacture vaccines in the factories is different for different vaccines
And since there are so many different types of vaccines and since it takes so long to manufacture them,
So the best way out is that research is conducted in different labs and universities by different companies
They all should develop the vaccine at their own pace and conduct their own tests
So that whosoever emerges out in the front later with the most successful testings
comes up with an authentic vaccine
Let us now talk about the status of the COVID19 vaccine
Right now, there are approximately around 100 vaccines under development across the world
which are in the pre clinical stage
The World Heath Organization has been tracking around 70 of these vaccines
As you can see in this PDF, the first two columns tell us about what type of vaccine it is
The third column states who is developing it-
a government agency, a university or a pharmaceutical company
The second last column tells us which stage of development is the vaccine in
Most of the vaccines are in the pre -clinical stage and some are in Phase 1 or phase 2 of clinical trial
This document is of April, though
The current status is that presently, there are 17 potential vaccines in the clinical trials stage across the world
in ten different countries and there is at least 1 vaccine
which is already being used by the Chinese military in a limited manner
Now. I'd like to talk about some top potential vaccines on a country by country basis
which are leading in the race to develop a vaccine
There are four potential candidates in USA that are under development
and the vaccine produced by the Moderna company is first in the race
They had begun with their human trials back in March
and they were planning to start phase 3 of their clinical trials
Around 30,000 people would be tested upon in Phase 3
but as per the latest news, their phase 3 trials have been slightly delayed
A vaccine is being developed in Germany by the Pfizer and BioNTech company
They conducted a clinical trial on 45 people and they found that when a 100 gram dose
of their vaccine was being administered to patients, 50% patients out of those
experienced fever and sleep disturbances as a side effect
although none of these side effects were life threatening
I want to show you how when trials are conducted upon patients, then it is found out
what the side effects of administering the vaccine are
and how they can be reduced and what should be changed
They are also planning their Phase 3 clinical trials by the end of July
which will be conducted on around 30,000 people
This normally takes upto five years, but experts believe that if this process is sped up,
by taking faster approvals, then it can be completed within one year
The Oxford University in UK is developing a vaccine and most of the experts are of the opinion that today,
at present, the vaccine being developed by the Oxford University is leading in the race to produce a vaccine
Their phase 2 trials have already been completed
They started their phase 3 trials on 20th June in Brazil
in which they are testing it on 5,000 people
They believe that by the end of August they'd be able to say whether this vaccine will be successful or not
If is indeed successful, then by the beginning of 2021, it would become available in he markets
Talking of India, there is a vaccine named "Covaxin" which has been a beacon of hope
It is being manufactured by a company called the Bharat Biotech, which is based in Hyderabad
They already have been granted the approval to start with their human trials
And it is expected that they will start with their phase 1 and phase 2 trails this week itself
This testing will be carries out on around 1,000 people in Hyderabad
But to say that this vaccine will be ready by 15th August, is an extremely unrealistic expectation
Compare it with the rest of the countries,
phase 1 and phase 2 trials have been completed in some countries and quite some time ago in others
and phase 3 trials are set to begin
So, how can they begin as well as conclude all the three trials within one month in India
Even if they ignore the phase 3 trials and say that they will only carry out trials in two phases
even that would take a period of a few months
A letter of the Indian Council of Medical research has surfaced which states that, "it is envisaged
to launch the vaccine for public health use latest by August 15th, 2020."
The same letter reads that this is the first indigenous vaccine being developed by India
and is one of the top priority projects which is being monitored at the topmost level of the government
This raises a question of whether pressure is being mounted on the companies and the scientists
to fast forward their clinical trials so that it can launch this vaccine on Independence day
to show off that India launched this vaccine for the world on its Independence day
This question does not sound that unbelievable
because such marketing stunts have been employed by the government in the past
For example, the 20 lakh crore budget released at 20:20 in the year 2020
in an attempt to align all these numbers
So this could be an attempt to say that they would give the country independence from corona on Independence day
It is important to give science more priority that these marketing stunts
What use would it be to launch a vaccine which has not been properly tested?
Even if we launch a vaccine without conducting clinical trials in a proper manner,
if it is used and it is alter found out that is causes certain negative effects in the long term,
What would happen then? Who would shoulder the blame?
Sufficient time and testing is extremely necessary for the vaccine or else
it might have side effects which could be harmful for the health of the people
As for Patanjali, the less I talk about it, the better it is
The clinical trials that it claimed to have conducted to show its 100% recovery rate,
the shortcomings, mistakes and the things that they have concealed in these clinical trials
have all been stated in this article by AltNews
I have provided its link in the description below. You can go read it if you wish to
to know why the vaccine and the treatment of Patanjali is not correct scientifically
I hope you would have learnt new things from this artilce. Share it
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