SEPTEMBER may just be the month to remember. Word is out from the University of Oxford that a Covid-19 vaccine — ChAdOx1 nCoV-19— may be jab-ready by then.
If all goes well, that is. There are the human trials and other post-trial adjustments that need to be worked on.
But still, this is good news amid so much of depressing reports. As this Leader went to press, the global death toll from Covid-19 went past 100,000.
According to the university, Professor Sarah Gilbert and her team started work designing a vaccine on Jan 10. The Oxford vaccine is said to contain the genetic sequence of the coronavirus’ club-shaped spikes.
This is how it works: after vaccination, the surface spike protein of the coronavirus is produced in the body, causing the immune system to attack the coronavirus if it later infects the body.
The team is of the view that ChAdOx1 — a chimpanzee adenovirus vaccine vector — has few advantages over some other vaccines.
One, just a dose can generate a strong immune response. Two, it is not a replicating virus, meaning it cannot cause an ongoing infection in the vaccinated individual. Three, ChAdOx1 is a well-studied vaccine type that has been used on infants and the very old.
This is not a first for the Oxford team. Professor Gilbert and her team previously developed a vaccine for another human coronavirus disease, the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS).
There is yet another blessed news. The team isn’t the only one trying to put a vector in the syringes.
According to The Guardian newspaper, more than 80 companies and academic institutions around the world are at various stages of play. In the United States alone, there are 21 companies in a similar rush. These early results are due to two things, the newspaper surmises.
One, China shared the sequence on the virus make-up in the early days of the pandemic. China could have held back, but it did the right thing by being generous. We hope pharmaceutical companies and the biotechs will recall this generosity when they price the vaccines for sale.
Our advice to these money machines is this: people then profit. Two, companies continued from where they left off during previous coronavirus onslaughts when Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome and MERS hit China (2004) and Saudi Arabia (2012).
Is all this an overdose of optimism? Yes and no. Yes, because vaccinologists will tell us that there is many a slip between the syringe and the sting.
Stumbles that stall are not unheard of in the history of vaccine development. This is why it takes at least five years from virus to vaccine. No, because Covid-19 is an unusual circumstance and hence the rush to put the vaccine on clinical and human trials. Vaccinologists estimate anything between 12 and 18 months to develop a vaccine, and this too, at full speed.
But this can be shortened, says Oxford University. One way is to ride on a vaccine delivery system that has been used before. All that is needed are adjustments for the new pathogen.
Next, in an emergency situation such as the Covid-19 pandemic, concurrence of manufacturing and clinical trial is a possibility, though the risk of a slip at the latter stage can’t be discounted.
Again, in a pandemic situation, regulatory review can be hastened with more dedicated resources. Either way, we will know when the autumn leaves start to fall.