Adjuvants, fundamental complement of the vaccine against COVID-19

Eduardo Najar
News from the Latina Agency for Medicine and Public Health

There are many resources that are sought in order to counter the effects of the new coronavirus, which is why there are some essential accessories for this purpose

Vaccines are a type of drug that is used to counter and boost the body, as well as the immune system, to fight a viral condition or agent, adjuvants are a type of “driver” in the drug that can help the individual fight a pathogen more efficiently and quickly, that is, it is an essential substance that works together with the drug.

“The adjuvant causes the vaccine to reach more places within the body and obviously attracts different components of the human body and thus ultimately activates the different immune cells,” explains Dr María Elena Bottazi, co-director of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s Hospital in the United States.

The immune system needs extra stimulation so that the white blood cells can move to the required place or area that is affected by a pathogen, this is how the help of an adjuvant acts as an amplifier and is important in the administration of the vaccine.

How a vaccine works

When a vaccine is produced, it has three parts or elements that are important for good function, they are antigen, adjuvant and preservatives, once the drug enters the body it causes an immune response where white blood cells are sent to contain an infection or virus .

In this way, the body automatically recognizes when the same agent tries to enter again and the immune system fights the pathogen efficiently and quickly and protects the body from comorbidities associated with this already recognized virus.

“If you don’t want the vaccine to spread very quickly, but rather reach the cells that need it, then it takes time and that’s what we call the deposit effect, which settles in one place and gives it time to spread. information ”the specialist emphasizes.

Adjuvants alone have no function, that’s why mixing them with the vaccine makes the drug ideal and totally effective, as well as safe to counter SARS-CoV-2, but it is complex or difficult for specialists to find this complement, so it required a lot of time.

“It’s like you have a speaker but you don’t put the music in it. They are coupled with everything you want to spread, in this case the specific component of the vaccine “, concluded the doctor.

It is important to keep in mind that for the development of a safe and effective vaccine some time is necessary and required, since there are many components and elements that are necessary for its function to be adequate with respect to a specific pathogen, in this case that of the new coronavirus; Expectations are high and it is estimated that a vaccine against one of the pandemics that has marked humanity will soon arrive.

Source:

BBC news. Covid-19 vaccine: what adjuvants are and why their research is as important as that of vaccines. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-53731414