Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility
Volunteers Still Needed to Test Variety of COVID-19 Vaccines
gvw_ap_news
By Associated Press
Published 5 years ago on
November 18, 2020

Share

Two COVID-19 vaccines might be nearing the finish line, but scientists caution it’s critical that enough people volunteer to help finish studying other candidates in the U.S. and around the world.

Moderna Inc. and competitor Pfizer Inc. recently announced preliminary results showing their vaccines appear more than 90% effective, at least for short-term protection against COVID-19.

If those early results hold up and U.S. regulators agree the shots are safe, emergency use of small, rationed supplies could start in late December. Other countries with contracts for early doses would undertake their own reviews.

But multiple vaccines will be needed to meet global demand and help end the pandemic, raising concern that studies that still need to sign up thousands of volunteers could run short if people wait for an already OK’d option instead.

“We don’t want to see that happen,” said Dr. James Cutrell, an infectious disease expert at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.

Supplies aside, other COVID-19 vaccines under development may work differently in different populations and “we likely will benefit from having a menu of vaccine options,” Cutrell said.

“We still need volunteers,” stressed National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins, urging Americans to sign up.

Additionally, participants in the Moderna and Pfizer studies who originally got dummy shots would almost certainly be offered the real vaccine if the U.S. Food and Drug Administration allows emergency use. But no one knows how long protection would last, meaning those studies also must continue to track recipients somehow.

“It’s one thing to be effective two months after your last vaccination and another thing to be effective a year” later, said Dr. Jesse Goodman of Georgetown University, a former director of the FDA’s vaccine division. “It’s going to be really important to complete these clinical trials and the trials of the other vaccines so we can make comparisons.”

The promising Moderna and Pfizer news bodes well for some of their competitors, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government’s top infectious disease expert whose team at NIH helped develop the Moderna candidate.

Those shots target the “spike” protein that studs the surface of the coronavirus, and the early results prove that’s enough to generate “a protective response,” Fauci said. “Conceptually this looks good” for other spike-focused vaccines made in different ways.

Here’s a scorecard of the frontrunners in the global vaccine race:

Genetic Code of Vaccines

The Moderna-NIH vaccine and the candidate developed by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech aren’t made with the coronavirus itself, meaning there’s no chance anyone could catch it from the shots.

Instead, the vaccines are made with a brand-new technology that injects a piece of genetic code for the spike protein. That messenger RNA, or mRNA, instructs the body to make some harmless spike protein, enough to prime the immune system to react if it later encounters the real virus.

There are no licensed mRNA vaccines for people, so scientists had no idea if or how well the COVID-19 candidates might work.

Both manufacturers are working to scale up production in factories in the U.S. and Europe. They can’t simply partner with other vaccine companies to take on some of the work because the technology is so different than the way most of today’s shots are made.

“It is not a very easy or quick swap,” said Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel.

Trojan Horse Vaccines

A different way to target the spike protein: Use another, harmless virus to carry the spike gene into the body. Once again, the body produces some spike protein and primes the immune system.

Britain’s Oxford University and AstraZeneca are making their version of this “viral vector” vaccine with a cold virus, or adenovirus, that normally infects chimpanzees. Studies of tens of thousands of people are underway in the U.K., U.S. and several other countries.

Johnson & Johnson is using a human adenovirus for its version, and is the only option in advanced U.S. testing aiming to show if a single dose rather than two would be enough.

China’s government authorized emergency use of CanSino Biologics’ adenovirus shots in the military ahead of any final testing. Russia likewise began offering an adenovirus vaccine ahead of late-stage tests.

Protein Vaccine

Novavax makes its vaccine candidate by growing harmless copies of the coronavirus spike protein in the laboratory and packaging them into virus-sized nanoparticles.

There are protein-based vaccines against other diseases, so it’s not as novel a technology as some of its competitors. Novavax has begun a large final-stage study in Britain, and is set soon to begin another in the U.S.

‘Killed’ Vaccines

Spike-focused vaccines aren’t the only option. Making vaccines by growing a disease-causing virus and then killing it is a tried-and-true approach — it’s the way Jonas Salk’s famed polio shots were made.

China has three so-called “inactivated” COVID-19 vaccine candidates in final testing in several countries, and has allowed emergency use in some people ahead of the results. An Indian company is testing its own inactivated candidate.

Safely brewing and then killing the virus takes longer than newer technologies. But inactivated vaccines give the body a sneak peek at the germ itself rather than just that single spike protein.

RELATED TOPICS:

DON'T MISS

What Are Fresno Real Estate Experts Predicting for 2025 and Beyond?

UP NEXT

Here’s What to Expect at the Army’s 250th Anniversary Parade on Trump’s Birthday

Israel and Iran Bombard Each Other, Trump Says He Can ‘Easily’ End Conflict

7 hours ago

Trump Vetoed an Israeli Plan to Kill Iran’s Supreme Leader, US Officials Say

7 hours ago

Fresno Man Arrested in Fatal DUI Crash on Trimmer Springs Road

A man is dead and three others are injured following a rollover crash Saturday evening on Trimmer Springs Road that investigators say was ca...

5 hours ago

5 hours ago

Fresno Man Arrested in Fatal DUI Crash on Trimmer Springs Road

Mourners pray during the funeral of a Palestinian killed in what the Gaza health ministry says was Israeli fire near a distribution center in Rafah, at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, June 15, 2025. REUTERS/Hatem Khaled
5 hours ago

Israeli Military Kills 41 People in Gaza, Medics Say

Bullet holes mark the front door of Minnesota state Senator John Hoffman, who was shot alongside his wife, Yvette, in what is believed to be an attack by 57-year-old suspect Vance Luther Boelter, who is also the lead suspect in the shooting deaths of senior Democratic state assemblywoman Melissa Hortman and her husband, Marc, in Champlin, Minnesota, U.S., June 14, 2025. REUTERS/Tim Evans
7 hours ago

Manhunt for Gunman Who Shot Two Minnesota Lawmakers Enters Second Day

Israelis take shelter at the side of a highway as siren sounds following missile attack from Iran on Israel, in central Israel June 15, 2025. REUTERS/Oren Ben Hakoon
7 hours ago

Israel and Iran Bombard Each Other, Trump Says He Can ‘Easily’ End Conflict

President Donald Trump speaks as he attends a military parade to commemorate the U.S. Army's 250th Birthday, on the day of his 79th birthday, in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 14, 2025. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo
7 hours ago

Trump Vetoed an Israeli Plan to Kill Iran’s Supreme Leader, US Officials Say

9 hours ago

Newsom Wanted To Fast-Track the Delta Tunnel Project. The Legislature Slowed the Flow

10 hours ago

Five Weeknight Dishes: Seven Ingredients or Fewer, Because Summer

11 hours ago

Big Fresno Fair Unveils Second Wave of 2025 Concert Acts

Help continue the work that gets you the news that matters most.

Search

Send this to a friend