[ad_1]
Simin Aysel Florescu, the medical director of the hospital “Victor Babeș”, spoke, during the interview “In front of you” by Digi24, about what the new Sars-CoV-2 vaccine contains and what are the advantages over the old ones technologies used in antiviral serums. He also explained how a vaccine is approved so as not to endanger people’s lives.
“It is a high-performance vaccine, a new type of vaccine that does not include any portion of germs as such. It does not contain any virus fractions or whole virus killed or attenuated, as all vaccines were now. It is a vaccine that contains the” genetic prescription “of the antigen that our body will then produce, as an antigen, and against which our whole body will produce antibodies in the form of this recipe. When the body comes into contact with the real virus, the antibodies are ready”, he said the infectious disease doctor.
It says it reduces the risk of side effects because it doesn’t contain virus fragments, as is the case with other classic vaccines.
“This risk is greatly reduced. It is an extremely new and extremely effective vaccine from a medical point of view and as a vaccine preparation technology. It is highly recommended.
Two of the vaccines that have now reached the level of general administration, so they have an opinion, they are prepared in the same style, they have the same platform, “Florescu said.
These sera must be stored and transported under special conditions, according to the medical director of the hospital “Victor Babeș”.
“Temperatures of minus many degrees for one and minus degrees for the other. In any case, a very strict cold chain must be maintained for both, because the only potential weak point is the fact that it is not stable enough at normal temperatures, “he said.
“I think more substances like this are in a spray that you use every day.”
He says the concerns about the presence of dangerous or untested substances in these vaccines are unfounded and explains how they are approved.
“I think we are always in contact with all kinds of substances. I think more substances like this are in a spray you use every day than in a vaccine.
These vaccines are extremely well-researched substances. There are whole batches, for example for this Sars-CoV-2 vaccine there were about 50,000 people tested in official clinical trials, as is done around the world.
A vaccine is never given on the market until the concept of safety, tolerability and efficacy is safe.
Let me give an example: if during clinical trials, no matter what they are, with a drug, with a vaccine, a patient suffers something, something that is clearly not related to that substance, for example, if a car hits him there. ‘pedestrian crossing while in this clinical trial is considered a serious adverse effect of the trial. They think, “Did the car hit him because he was dizzy from the substance?” Until this is clarified, the process is stopped. Things are taken very seriously. Nothing is ever left to chance and, moreover, after a vaccine has been placed on the market for use, it is still followed, post-marketing, with warnings and communications of side effects and others, for a few more years, to prevent any another thing that was not noticed in a timely manner. But this happens very rarely, for something else to appear, “added Simin Aysel Florescu.
How the flu vaccine can benefit from new Covid-19 vaccination technology
For scientists studying influenza viruses, the latest scientific breakthroughs in the field are very important, as they herald an acceleration of their research, according to Bloomberg.
“We will see how vaccines and all these new technologies behave,” said Gregory Glenn, director of research at Novavax, who works on Covid and flu vaccines.
The flu viruses that infect humans are constantly evolving, so twice a year – around the peak of flu seasons in the winters of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres – WHO is working on the best estimate of the strains that could appear each year. following. Pharmaceutical companies use this information to develop vaccines and start production as soon as possible, usually by injecting viruses into hundreds of millions of chicken eggs, where they grow for several days before being extracted. After a few weeks of additional processing, by the end of the summer, manufacturers send the flu serums to clinics and pharmacies for distribution to patients during the fall.
In some years the procedure works quite well, in others the performance is bad. According to US infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci, vaccines have been between 10% and 60% effective over the past 15 years. “Once vaccine production has begun, it’s nearly impossible to start a new one if a different viral strain appears,” Fauci told Congress last year.
Some techniques explored by Covid researchers are fundamentally different. Instead of viral proteins, Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines contain so-called messenger RNA, or mRNA, the genetic instructions that cause the body to produce disease-specific antigens, effectively transforming itself into its own vaccine factory. The technology is still new, and a successful debut against Covid would boost public confidence in mRNA vaccines for influenza and other diseases, according to Meagan Fitzpatrick, assistant professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. “It will be a huge push. The biggest obstacles will already be overcome,” he said.
The second flu technology ready to exploit Covid research is the so-called recombinant vaccine, an idea carried out by Novavax and Sanofi. In this process, scientists remove what triggers an immune response from the virus’s DNA. Technicians combine DNA with genetic material that can penetrate the cells of insects such as moths, which successfully grow proteins and are easy to grow. The cells then produce the antigen which can be collected for use in the vaccine. A Sanofi subsidiary signed a $ 226 million contract in December last year with the United States Department of Health and Human Services to increase the production capacity of recombinant influenza vaccines at a Pennsylvania facility.
While not used in Covid research, so-called vaccines that use cell cultures – which avoid the use of eggs – benefit from this interest. In this approach, the virus grows into cells of mammalian origin, which are preferable because the virus no longer tries to adapt to its avian host.
However, the renewed focus on influenza and the money spent on Covid prevention will accelerate the shift from eggs to new technologies that are becoming more acceptable, says Leo Poon, head of the Science Department of the Public Health Laboratory at the University of Hong. Kong. “It will definitely help develop more effective vaccines for other diseases,” he says.
Pfizer, BioNTech, and Moderna, which currently don’t offer flu serums, are already applying mRNA vaccines to others besides Covid. The technology “will change the market for influenza,” said Mikael Dolsten, Pfizer’s chief scientific officer. “We see a great opportunity”.
Publisher: Alexandru Costea
.
[ad_2]
Source link
