Top COVID‑19 Vaccines in India: AstraZeneca, Covaxin & More Reviewed

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While there are many contenders for the most awaited COVID-19 vaccination, the world has high hopes with many of the participants who have already made tall claims of COVID–19’s cure, but are these claims right and can we believe them? While no one can claim to know everything under the sun, but here is what we can at least do since these medicines are to be injected in our body and as an aware individual we have every right to know what is being given to us, so let us be a little logical and judge or analyze these vaccinations on the basic principles of logic than anything .elseThise isthe list of companies whthattave claimed of COVID vaccine and their analysis. Before reading further, I would like the readers to be reminded of my previous article on the Corona, in which I made a few general points that have come true in these dire times (refer to the old article).

This is the list of contenders /participants of vaccination and their methods, which can be potential vaccines.

	Developer	Properties
mRNA-1273	Moderna and NIAID	mRNA
BNT162	BioNTech and Pfizer	mRNA
INO-4800	Inovio Pharmaceuticals	DNA
AZD1222	University of Oxford and AstraZeneca	Adenovirus
Ad5-nCoV	CanSino Biologics	Adenovirus
Unnamed	Wuhan Institute of Biological Products and Sinopharm	Inactivated Virus
Unnamed	Beijing Institute of Biological Products and Sinopharm	Inactivated Virus
PiCoVacc	Sinovac	Inactivated virus, plus adjuvant
Unnamed	Institute of Medical Biology and Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences	Inactivated Virus
NVX-CoV2373	Novavax	Protein Subunit

 

The most talked of all the vaccines Oxford’s DNA based vaccine has been gaining much attention lately but since it has failed I don’t feel it as a worthy opponent to be discussed here but since this has been an effective way of treating ailments the method, however, has to be discussed, let us understand this in the most oversimplified way so as even a layman would be able to comprehend and understand the concept well and get worthy information.

DNA Vaccines

To oversimplify the method of creating a DNA based vaccination we need to just understand this example of cleaning cereals in our households, just like these cereals are cleared and used in our homes, in the same manner, the DNA sequence of the Virus is extracted from the active virus and the active infectious part shall be removed, the obtained DNA shall be synthesized to make the vaccine. By not going into the complexities of the process, we are just trying to understand what type of vaccine can be more successful in the case of the COVID-19 pandemic that the world is facing.

This method of creating a vaccine is quite common and the most successful model of this vaccination that is ever recorded is the regular use of a Vaccine on horses for the successful treatment of West Nile virus aka West Nile Fever, the medicine is successfully and completely approved by FDA for veterinary use on horses but it has failed to clear a similar test in humans.

The only setback of this method of vaccination is that someone has to clear the infection and make it less or non-infecting and extract it's DNA based on which the medicine/vaccination would be prepared, this can be a little costly as not every county may have such apparatus to extract the DNA readily from the virus let alone if the virus is highly infectious in which case a special laboratory and infrastructure would be needed.

mRNA

This can be called the most promising technique, which can become a potential vaccination method as this has the most inexpensive and right strategy to attack and control the virus; this is so effective that it may be used to treat other viruses which have not been defeated yet (taking any names).

The strategy this medication follow is that a messenger protein/ RNA structure is sent into our body to create awareness inside our body and this can be done just by downloading the sequence of the said virus and recreate it with standard sets, which makes it an inexpensive way of creating an antigen and the cost of extracting or say synthesising the virus, the cost will be reduced and the efficacy goes higher, and since these vaccines can be modified or customised, these can be changed with each changing strain of COVID (which is seriously not recommended according to the standard practices laid down by reputed organisations), to oversimplify the vaccines’ work it is like sending a messenger into friendly kingdom giving out crucial information like the strength of the enemy army, cavalry, foot soldiers etc so that the friend nation may make proper arrangements to fight the war and win on that front.

If adopted with a proper strategy, this vaccine may be a boon and a lifesaver in case of a Pandemic.

Why am I sceptical about this medicine?

The only reason of worry, however, is the high mutation rate of COVID 19, i.e. the mutation of this virus is at a very high rate, I have a theory of how the strains of corona virus will change its strength and stability with increasing immunity and how with each strain the COVID virus may get stronger and stronger to create more fatalities which is diametrically opposite to the conventional theory of how virus works, it gets weaker with each mutation, but since the virus is much more different from the known viruses this can be an exception.

Working

Conventional vaccines usually contain inactivated disease-causing organisms or proteins made by the pathogen (antigens), which work by mimicking the infectious agent. They stimulate the body’s immune response, so it is primed to respond more rapidly and effectively if exposed to the infectious agent in the future.

RNA vaccines use a different approach that takes advantage of the process that cells use to make proteins: cells use DNA as the template to make messenger RNA (mRNA) molecules, which are then translated to build proteins. An RNA vaccine consists of an mRNA strand that codes for a disease-specific antigen. Once the mRNA strand in the vaccine is inside the body’s cells, the cells use the genetic information to produce the antigen. This antigen is then displayed on the cell surface, where it is recognized by the immune system. (Phgfoundation, n.d.).

Protein subunit

When a single or main protein is taken and isolated from the virus and seen as an individual sub protein and then it is combined with an antigen to produce a robust building which when injected inside the body will help the immune system to create a new customized antigen which is unique to each body ( as every body is unique, so is the antibody), in such a way this vaccine is also a more precise way to deal with this particular pandemic (COVID) but how this turns out to be when mass trials are done is a completely different situation all together, we need to wait and watch the vaccinations and wait for the results, hope one of these vaccinations will have be a potential cure to this ailment and break us free from the miserable situation that we are in right now.

Conclusion

As always there is some take away, the scientists have always been very aloof of the potential possibility that the virus might mutate and become weak with each mutation, lest that would happen but there is more nuance to this virus, the virus has many exceptions like the high mutation rate, It took 9 long years (nearly a decade) for the H1N1 virus to mutate (medical express, n.d.)which means it takes decades in many cases it may take seasons to mutate but no two variants can be so dissimilar to each other that their characteristics change on a whole new level, the condition is called unprecedented for a reason alone that humanity has never faced something so virulent yet fundamentally so static, so to understand the virus we need to invest more time to read and know about its basic structure and how to damage its functioning. What would you or any individual do when you need to kill a harmful species? The basic and yet effective way to control or wipe out a whole species should be to limit the reproduction rate or to hamper the basic functionalities of an organism, viz reproduction rate as well as the digestion and food availability. While many vaccines are focusing on killing or making the virus inactive, we need to understand that if we somehow stop the virus from entering the body and stop its multiplication, the virus would die a natural death.

Which vaccine is more effective and promising, according to the above analysis the most promising vaccine is mRNA based which was explained considering we are at war (which we are), on second preference the Subunit method also seems to be very good but let us cross our fingers and hope for best to come out of the research, let’s have faith on our doctors.

Reference

(n.d.). Retrieved from phgfoundation: https://www.phgfoundation.org/briefing/rna-vaccines

Medical Express. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-06-swine-flu-strain-china-poses.html