Army vaccine researchers are preparing for the possibility of new COVID-19 strains – ArmyTimes.com

Army medical experts involved in testing COVID-19 vaccine candidates developed by outside laboratories are also working to develop their own vaccine, one that can give them the building blocks to combat future strains of the virus if mutations arise.

The first few vaccines being queued up for what the White House recently dubbed Operation Warp Speed includes those by the companies Moderna, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson, Army researchers involved in the project said during a telephone call with reporters Tuesday.

Modernas candidate, for instance, is very, very likely to be the first major vaccine to be tested in large scale, said Nelson Michael, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.

But Army researchers are developing another vaccine, added Kayvon Modjarrad, the institutes director of emerging infectious diseases. Their vaccine is being designed with a long-term approach to combating new strains of the novel coronavirus.

Theres no evidence currently that there are new strains, Modjarrad cautioned. But the vaccine his team is developing would help researchers more quickly fight any mutated strains should they arise.

We have been vaccinating hundreds and hundreds of mice with different versions of our vaccine and we will be making the decision as to which one is the best one to take forward for manufacturing next week," Modjarrad said. "And then, ultimately, to a first-in-human clinical trial in the late summer.

Human data obtained from those trials will inform the advancement of the other vaccines being pursued by Operation Warp Speed, Modjarrad added.

Even though it will not be one of those first four vaccines that initially go into large scale testing, we believe that ... with coronavirus in general and not just this particular one, we may be onto something very good," Michael said.

Don't miss the top Army stories, delivered each afternoon

(please select a country) United States United Kingdom Afghanistan Albania Algeria American Samoa Andorra Angola Anguilla Antarctica Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Aruba Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Bouvet Island Brazil British Indian Ocean Territory Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Cape Verde Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad Chile China Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia Comoros Congo Congo, The Democratic Republic of The Cook Islands Costa Rica Cote D'ivoire Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Falkland Islands (Malvinas) Faroe Islands Fiji Finland France French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Gibraltar Greece Greenland Grenada Guadeloupe Guam Guatemala Guinea Guinea-bissau Guyana Haiti Heard Island and Mcdonald Islands Holy See (Vatican City State) Honduras Hong Kong Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran, Islamic Republic of Iraq Ireland Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Republic of Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Lao People's Democratic Republic Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macao Macedonia, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania Mauritius Mayotte Mexico Micronesia, Federated States of Moldova, Republic of Monaco Mongolia Montserrat Morocco Mozambique Myanmar Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands Netherlands Antilles New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Niue Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands Norway Oman Pakistan Palau Palestinian Territory, Occupied Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Pitcairn Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Qatar Reunion Romania Russian Federation Rwanda Saint Helena Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Pierre and Miquelon Saint Vincent and The Grenadines Samoa San Marino Sao Tome and Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia and Montenegro Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Georgia and The South Sandwich Islands Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Svalbard and Jan Mayen Swaziland Sweden Switzerland Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan, Province of China Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand Timor-leste Togo Tokelau Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States United States Minor Outlying Islands Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela Viet Nam Virgin Islands, British Virgin Islands, U.S. Wallis and Futuna Western Sahara Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe

Subscribe

By giving us your email, you are opting in to the Army Times Daily News Roundup.

In mid-May, President Donald Trump announced that Operation Warp Speed would harness private sector partners and government agencies to deliver a COVID-19 vaccine by January 2021.

Modjarrad said the timeline handed down to deliver the vaccine is unprecedented but is very much possible." Historically, the time from when a new virus has been discovered to when a vaccine becomes available hasnt changed all that much over the past 150 years, he noted.

But what has changed is when there is a concerted and intentional effort to develop a vaccine when that vaccine program begins to when we get the vaccine that timeline has compressed considerably," Modjarrad added. "From decades to years, and now, potentially to months.

A vaccine for the new strain of the Zika virus that was recently circulating in the Western Hempishere, for instance, reached clinical trials in about eight months, said Modjarrad.

Other viruses, like HIV, have proven more difficult, depite the large amounts of funding and time since the virus was first identified in the 1980s.

But most viruses are not like HIV. They do not mutate like HIV, said Modjarrad. What youre seeing now, with us being able to compress the timeline, is us overcoming prior issues weve had with other vaccine development with funding and coordination.

Modjarrad said that the scientific community is learning about COVID-19 faster than just about any other virus that came before it, a fact he credited to the streamlined effort to find a vaccine.

How much of the vaccine will be produced and who it will be available to is unclear, but meeting the timeline for the end of the year should be possible, according to Col. Wendy Sammons-Jackson, director of the Military Infectious Disease Research Program.

It is reasonable to expect that there will be some form of a vaccine that could be available at some level, to a certain population by the end of the year," said Sammons-Jackson. As long as were able to continue to progress and learn and understand and adapt, I think we have all the resources available pointed in the same direction that could make that possible.

Read more here:

Army vaccine researchers are preparing for the possibility of new COVID-19 strains - ArmyTimes.com