A university in the United States has claimed that testing for a vaccine against Covid-19 has been successful. While there is obviously still a long way to go, the news is very encouraging.
On April 1, 2020, a very encouraging publication was published in the journal EBioMedicine (PDF in English / 12 pages). You should know that the latter is supported by the famous British scientific journal The Lancet. In other words, the study has been verified, which is far from the case for all the studies appearing at the moment. Information is crucial:a draft vaccine against Covid-19 works on mice. Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh (USA), however, indicated that there was still a long way to go before the vaccine was tested and approved in humans.
Recall that since the start of the epidemic, laboratories around the world have been working on developing a vaccine. Furthermore, the experience of old coronaviruses SARS (2003) and MERS (2012) proved useful. Indeed, the scientific community has been able to understand that the spike protein of coronaviruses was the key to protecting against it. The fact is that this spike protein allows this type of virus to infect human cells.
The injection of the vaccine is rather original insofar as it is done by means of a patch composed of 400 micro-needles . However, these micro-needles have the mission of releasing bits of protein at the point under the skin where the immune reaction is the strongest. According to the researchers, this method is inspired by that of scratching in the context of the administration of the smallpox vaccine. However, the technique of this new vaccine is really high tech , is more effective and also reproducible in any patient.
In sum, the vaccine gave the mice the ability to produce antibodies within two weeks of injection. Thus, the vaccine protects mice over a period of one year . If these results are encouraging, it will nevertheless be necessary to be patient. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is expected to review this research soon and whether or not to authorize human testing in the coming months.
Obviously, the objective is to eradicate the disease or failing that, to severely limit its progression. However, if Covid-19 becomes a seasonal disease, the vaccine may provide protection every year.
