Category: Corona Virus Vaccine

Scientists have developed a vaccine with a new approach called proactive vaccinology,' which has shown protection in mice against a broad range of coronaviruses with potential for future disease outbreaks, according to a new study published in the journal, Nature Nanotechnology on Monday.

Under the proactive vaccinology vaccine development process, scientists develop vaccines preemptively, often before the disease-causing pathogen even emerges.

The vaccine, 'Quartet Nanocage', developed by Oxford and Caltech, is expected to commence phase one clinical trials in early 2025. However, its intricate design poses manufacturing challenges that may constrain large-scale production.

The new vaccine functions by instructing the body's immune system to identify particular regions of eight distinct coronaviruses, encompassing SARS-CoV-1, SARS-CoV-2, and several strains presently prevalent in bats, which hold the potential to cross over to humans and trigger a pandemic.

The vaccine's efficacy relies on its ability to target specific virus regions shared among various coronaviruses. By training the immune system to combat these regions, it offers protection against other coronaviruses not directly included in the vaccine, including those yet to be discovered.

For instance, although the new vaccine excludes the SARS-CoV-1 coronavirus responsible for the 2003 SARS outbreak, it still triggers an immune response against it.

Rory Hills, the first author of the report, said, Our focus is to create a vaccine that will protect us against the next coronavirus pandemic and have it ready before the pandemic has even started."

Weve created a vaccine that provides protection against a broad range of different coronaviruses including ones we dont even know about yet," the graduate researcher in the University of Cambridges Department of Pharmacology said as quoted in the study.

Another senior author, Professor Mark Howarth, said scientists swiftly developed an exceptionally effective COVID vaccine during the last pandemic. However, the world still faced a monumental crisis, resulting in a significant number of deaths.

We dont have to wait for new coronaviruses to emerge. We know enough about coronaviruses, and different immune responses to them, that we can get going with building protective vaccines against unknown coronaviruses now," Howarth said.

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Published: 08 May 2024, 11:27 AM IST

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'Oxford vaccine may protect against future COVID outbreaks', says report - Mint

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New FLiRT variants of COVID-19: What to know - The Columbus Dispatch

Pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca has formally asked the European Medicines Agency to withdraw its COVID-19 vaccine authorization.

In an update on the European Medicines Agency's website Wednesday, the regulator said that the approval for AstraZeneca's Vaxzevria had been withdrawn at the request of the marketing authorization holder.

The vaccine, initially approved in January 2021, faced safety concerns over rare blood clots, prompting various countries to halt its use temporarily.

While the EU regulator determined that the overall risk was low, doubts lingered. Additionally, limited data on its effectiveness in older adults led to initial restrictions.

READ ALSO: Hopes of HIV cure after breakthrough using gene-editing 'scissors'

Billions of doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine were distributed to poorer countries through a U.N.-coordinated program, as it was cheaper and easier to produce and distribute. However? studies later suggested that the pricier messenger RNA vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna provided better protection against COVID-19 and its many variants, and most countries switched to those shots.

The U.K.'s national coronavirus immunization program in 2021 heavily relied on AstraZeneca's vaccine, which was largely developed by scientists at Oxford University with significant financial government support.

But even Britain later resorted to buying the mRNA vaccines for its COVID booster vaccination programs and the AstraZeneca vaccine is now rarely used globally.

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AstraZeneca withdraws its Covid-19 vaccine from sale - Africanews English

Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca has said it was withdrawing its Covid-19 vaccine Vaxzevria, one of the first produced in the deadly pandemic, citing "commercial reasons" following a slump in demand.

"As multiple, variant Covid-19 vaccines have since been developed there is a surplus of available updated vaccines. This has led to a decline in demand for Vaxzevria, which is no longer being manufactured or supplied," an AstraZeneca spokesperson added in a statement.

"We will now work with regulators and our partners to align on a clear path forward to conclude this chapter and significant contribution to the Covid-19 pandemic."

AstraZeneca rapidly developed the successful Covid-19 jab during the coronavirus pandemic which erupted in the first half of 2020.

Vaxzevria, developed alongside Oxford University, was at first offered at cost but Astra decided in late 2021 to sell it for profit.

However, the world pivoted towards mRNA vaccines, particularly the one produced by US drugs giant Pfizer and German peer BioNTech, after rare blood-clot problems with AstraZeneca's jab increased public hesitancy about taking it.

Sales collapsed further as global Covid restrictions were fully lifted worldwide and the world emerged from the global health crisis.

The AstraZeneca spokesperson said the group had begun the process from taking it off the market in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region.

The company will work with other regulators globally to start market authorisation withdrawals for the Vaxzevria "where no future commercial demand for the vaccine is expected".

The spokesperson said that, according to independent estimates, "over 6.5 million lives were saved in the first year of use alone" and more than three billion doses were supplied globally.

"We are incredibly proud of the role Vaxzevria played in ending the global pandemic," the spokesperson said.

"Our efforts have been recognised by governments around the world and are widely regarded as being a critical component of ending the global pandemic. "

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AstraZeneca withdraws Covid jab 'for commercial reasons' - RTE.ie

Weeks after admitting that its Covid vaccine can cause rare side effects, AstraZeneca Tuesday announced that it is withdrawing the Oxford-AstraZeneca novel coronavirus shot worldwide.

According to a report by The Telegraph, AstraZeneca said the vaccine was being removed from markets for commercial reasons. The vaccine was no longer being manufactured or supplied, after being superseded by updated vaccines which have the capability to tackle new variants, the report stated.

According to the report, the vaccine can no longer be used in the European Union after the company voluntarily withdrew its marketing authorisation.

The application to withdraw the vaccine was made on March 5 this year and came into effect on Tuesday.

The pharmaceutical company is being sued in a class action over claims that its vaccine against Covid-19, developed with the University of Oxford, caused death and serious injury, including TTS Thrombosis with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome which causes people to have blood clots and a low blood platelet count.

However, according to The Telegraph, AstraZeneca has insisted the decision to withdraw the vaccine is not linked to the court case or its admission that it can cause TTS. It said that the timing was pure coincidence.

AstraZeneca, in collaboration with The University of Oxford, had developed AZD1222 vaccine after the outbreak of the coronavirus in 2020. In India and other low-and-middle-income countries, it was manufactured and supplied under the name Covishield by Serum Institute of India (SII) through a licence from the university and the Swedish-British drugmaker.

Report on rare side effects

AstraZeneca admitted in a legal document submitted to the High Court in February, that its Covid vaccine can, in very rare cases, cause TTS.

Lawyers had argued that the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine is defective and that its efficacy has been vastly overstated. AstraZeneca then strongly denied these claims.

51 cases have been lodged so far in the High Court, with victims and grieving relatives seeking damages estimated to be worth up to 100 million, a report in The Telegraph noted.

According to the report, Sarah Moore, a partner at law firm Leigh Day, who brings the legal claims, said, In that context, regrettably it seems that AZ, the Government and their lawyers are more keen to play strategic games and run up legal fees than to engage seriously with the devastating impact that their AZ vaccine has had upon our clients lives.

In response to these claims, AstraZeneca said, Our sympathy goes out to anyone who has lost loved ones or reported health problems. Patient safety is our highest priority, and regulatory authorities have clear and stringent standards to ensure the safe use of all medicines, including vaccines.

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First uploaded on: 08-05-2024 at 07:42 IST

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Commercial reasons: Astrazeneca withdraws Covid vaccine, weeks after report on rare side effects - The Indian Express

AstraZeneca has begun the worldwide withdrawal of its Covid-19 vaccine due to a surplus of available updated vaccines since the pandemic.

The company said it would proceed to withdraw Vaxzevria's marketing authorisations within Europe.

Regulator, the European Medicines Agency, has confirmed the vaccine is no longer authorised for use.

As multiple, variant Covid-19 vaccines have since been developed there is a surplus of available updated vaccines, the company said, adding this had led to a decline in demand.

The Anglo-Swedish drugmaker's decision came after a statement to the High Court in London in February confirmed that its vaccine can, in very rare cases, cause TTS (Thrombosis with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome), a form of blood clot.

Cases were found in people with a low blood platelet count.

It is estimated that between two and three per 100,000 people who were vaccinated had this adverse effect.

Adam Finn, professor of paediatrics at the University of Bristol and head of the Bristol Children's Vaccine Centre, said the the withdrawal is likely not related to the rare side effect.

He told Radio 4's Today show on Wednesday: "It's turned out that this virus is very agile, and it's evolved away from the original vaccines. So they have in a sense become irrelevant and only the reformulated vaccines are likely to be being used now.

"And of course, we're in a very different place, with almost everyone at the population immune to Sars-CoV-2. So the need for this vaccine I think has evaporated now."

Nevertheless, the relationship between the vaccine and TTS has been known for some time, he said.

An employee is pictured at the Reference Centre for Special Immunobiologicals (CRIE) of the Federal University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, where the trials of the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine are conducted. Amanda Perobelli / Reuters

He added: "It's completely clear that this vaccine and the other one [using] this platform, a viral vector from Johnson & Johnson, was associated with this thrombocytopenic thrombosis syndrome. I think that's been clear for a long time, although perhaps only recently acknowledged.

"But I don't think that's really relevant to this withdrawal. I think the withdrawal of the vaccine is simply reflects the fact that it's no longer useful and so not going to be being used anymore."

The firm's application to withdraw the vaccine was made on March 5 and came into effect on May 7, according to the UK's Daily Telegraph.

Patients who say they were left with permanent health problems and are suing the drug maker, though some cases were recently dropped after being told the presence of a small print warning means their case would probably fail.

Gareth Eve, whose BBC radio presenter wife Lisa Shaw died three weeks after receiving her first dose, is among a number of parties who have pulled out of the High Court legal action.

They were told their claim was unlikely to succeed because a leaflet, handed out at vaccination centres, warned of extremely rare cases of blood clots with low levels of platelets after vaccination with the AstraZeneca shot.

It is believed the warning, issued on April 7, 2021, could protect AstraZeneca from cases in which relatives died after receiving vaccines beyond that date.

A dozen families have now dropped out of the legal action as a result.

But more than 50 of relatives of people who received the vaccine before the warning was added are continuing with the lawsuit.

The vaccine, developed with scientists from the University of Oxford, was seen as pivotal given its low cost and the fact it could be stored in a normal fridge rather than super-cold storage.

London-listed AstraZeneca began moving into respiratory syncytial virus vaccines and obesity drugs through several deals last year after a slowdown in growth as Covid-19 medicine sales declined, Reuters reported.

Scientists are still learning much about the effects of Long Covid, which is thought to affect millions of people.

The launch of the AstraZeneca vaccine was seen as a milestone in the battle against the Covid-19 pandemic.

The first clinical trial for the vaccine started in January 2020, around the same time when reports of the first cases emerged in China.

It built on previous work to create an adenovirus-based vaccine against the Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) coronavirus, making it a case of copying and pasting the genetic code for the spike protein for the virus that causes Covid into the platform's harmless chimp adenovirus to create the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine.

By early February, the lab had tested a lab version of the vaccine in mice, which revealed strong immune responses, suggesting the vaccine would work.

Human volunteers received their first doses in April 2020.

On 23 November 2020, it was announced the vaccine was successful, with 70.4% efficacy in preventing symptomatic Covid more than 14 days after receiving two doses of the vaccine.

"We were involved in Bristol in collaboration with Oxford a number of other centres in doing research on this vaccine and I very clearly remember the day in November 2020, when the results came through. And it turned out that it worked," said Prof Finn.

"And we were able to see very early on that even just one dose of this vaccine was saving many, many lives.

"It was a very remarkable period and we really didn't know what to expect, as it came through. Of course, we've never had the experience of developing a vaccine in such a short period of time. But the truth is, it made an enormous difference. It was what as you said at the beginning was what lifted us out of the catastrophe that was unfolding at the time, combined with the other vaccine from Pfizer."

Updated: May 08, 2024, 9:24 AM

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AstraZeneca withdraws Covid-19 vaccine due to 'lack of demand' - The National

A new vaccine technology effective in mice against a broad range of coronaviruses - including ones we do not even know about - has been developed by researchers.

The scientists at the University of Cambridge, University of Oxford and Calech say such proactive vaccinology can help protect against future disease outbreaks.

The Quartet Nanocage vaccine trains the bodys immune system to recognise specific regions of eight different coronaviruses.

These include SARS-CoV-2 - which caused Covid-19 - and several that are currently circulating in bats that have potential to jump to humans and cause a pandemic.

The specific regions the vaccine targets appear in many related coronaviruses, so training the immune system to attack these regions confers protection against others not represented in the vaccine, including ones we have yet to identify.

mpu1

The new vaccine does not incorporate the SARS-CoV-1 coronavirus that caused the 2003 SARS outbreak, but still induces an immune response to that virus.

Rory Hills, a graduate researcher in the University of Cambridges Department of Pharmacology and first author of the study published in Nature Nanotechnology, said: Our focus is to create a vaccine that will protect us against the next coronavirus pandemic, and have it ready before the pandemic has even started.

Weve created a vaccine that provides protection against a broad range of different coronaviruses including ones we dont even know about yet.

Prof Mark Howarth, in Cambridges Department of Pharmacology and senior author of the report, said: We dont have to wait for new coronaviruses to emerge. We know enough about coronaviruses, and different immune responses to them, that we can get going with building protective vaccines against unknown coronaviruses now.

Scientists did a great job in quickly producing an extremely effective Covid vaccine during the last pandemic, but the world still had a massive crisis with a huge number of deaths. We need to work out how we can do even better than that in the future, and a powerful component of that is starting to build the vaccines in advance.

Typically, vaccines include a single antigen, which trains the immune system to target a single specific virus.

But this vaccine has a nanoparticle structure, based on a ball of proteins held together by incredibly strong interactions, with chains of different viral antigens attached using a novel protein superglue.

Including multiple antigens in these chains trains the immune system to target specific regions shared across a broad range of coronaviruses.

mpu2

Whats remarkable is that with just components, we have managed to raise an immune response to a broad range of coronaviruses, including to viruses that arent present in the vaccine itself, said Rory.

The study showed how the vaccine raises a broad immune response, even in mice pre-immunised with SARS-CoV-2.

Other broadly protective vaccines are in development, but the researchers say this one is much simpler in design, which could accelerate its route into clinical trials.

The underlying technology could also be deployed for other vaccines.

The work improves on earlier research by the Oxford and Caltech groups to develop a novel all-in-one vaccine against coronavirus threats.

That vaccine is expected to enter Phase I clinical trials in early 2025, but the complexity of manufacturing it could limit large-scale production.

The new research was funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.

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How Nanocage vaccine could provide broad protection against coronaviruses - including ones we dont know exist yet - Cambridge Independent

By Stephen Beech via SWNS

A new jab is effective against coronaviruses that havent even emerged yet, claim scientists.

Cambridge University researchers have developed new vaccine technology that has been shown in mice to provide protection against a wide range of viruses with potential for future devastating outbreaks.

Their aim is to create a vaccine that will protect people against the next coronavirus pandemic - and have it ready before the outbreak even begins.

The new approach - called "proactive vaccinology" - involves scientists building a vaccine before the disease-causing pathogen even emerges.

The new vaccine works by training the bodys immune system to recognize specific regions of eight different coronaviruses - including SARS-CoV-1, SARS-CoV-2, and several currently circulating in bats and have the potential to jump to humans and cause a pandemic.

Key to its effectiveness is that the specific virus regions the vaccine targets also appear in many related coronaviruses, say scientists.

By training the immune system to attack those regions, it gives protection against other coronaviruses not represented in the vaccine including ones that havent even been identified yet.

Conventional vaccines include a single antigen to train the immune system to target a single specific virus.

That may not protect against a diverse range of existing coronaviruses, or against pathogens that are newly emerging.

The researchers explained that the new vaccine, for example, does not include the SARS-CoV-1 coronavirus, which caused the 2003 SARS outbreak, yet it still induces an immune response to that virus.

Study first author Rory Hills, a graduate researcher in the University of Cambridges Department of Pharmacology, said: Our focus is to create a vaccine that will protect us against the next coronavirus pandemic, and have it ready before the pandemic has even started.

Weve created a vaccine that provides protection against a broad range of different coronaviruses including ones we dont even know about yet.

Senior author Professor Mark Howarth, also of Cambridges Department of Pharmacology, said: We dont have to wait for new coronaviruses to emerge.

"We know enough about coronaviruses, and different immune responses to them, that we can get going with building protective vaccines against unknown coronaviruses now,

He added: Scientists did a great job in quickly producing an extremely effective Covid vaccine during the last pandemic, but the world still had a massive crisis with a huge number of deaths.

"We need to work out how we can do even better than that in the future, and a powerful component of that is starting to build the vaccines in advance.

Prof Howarth explained that the new Quartet Nanocage vaccine is based on a structure called a nanoparticle a ball of proteins held together by incredibly strong interactions.

Chains of different viral antigens are attached to the nanoparticle using a novel protein superglue.

Prof Howarth says multiple antigens are included in the chains, which trains the immune system to target specific regions shared across a wide range of coronaviruses.

The findings of the study, published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, show that the new vaccine raises a broad immune response, even in mice that were pre-immunized with SARS-CoV-2.

The new vaccine is much simpler in design than other broadly protective vaccines currently in development, which the researchers say should accelerate its route into clinical trials.

They believe the underlying technology they have developed also has potential for use in vaccine development to protect against other health problems.

The work involved a collaboration between scientists at Cambridge, the University of Oxford, and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in the United States.

It improves on previous work, by the Oxford and Caltech groups, to develop a new "all-in-one" vaccine against coronavirus threats.

The vaccine developed by Oxford and Caltech is due to enter clinical trials next year, but scientists say its "complex" nature makes it "challenging" to manufacture which could limit large-scale production.

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New vaccine effective against future coronaviruses | Health | postguam.com - The Guam Daily Post

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New vaccine effective against coronaviruses that haven't even emerged yet - East Anglia Bylines

With the COVID-19 virus continuing to evolve, a new variant dubbed KP.2 has rapidly become the leading cause of COVID infection in the country, making up about 25 percent of new cases.

[1]

KP.2 is a member of a group of variants called FliRT (which is short for the technical names of their mutations). Recent CDC reporting shows that another FliRT variant, KP.1.1, has also been gaining steam and currently accounts for 7.5 percent of infections.

[2]

The Japanese researchers concluded that because of its higher viral fitness, KP.2 will potentially become the predominant lineage worldwide.

[3]

While KP.2 may lead to a rise in new COVID cases, most people should have protection against severe illness and hospitalization because of antibodies from previous infection or vaccination, according to Edward Jones-Lopez, MD, an infectious disease specialist with Keck Medicine of USC in Los Angeles.

As long as the current strain is not so different from the previous strain, we have immunity against serious symptoms due to a combination of both vaccines and natural infections, says Dr. Jones-Lopez.

As with other variants, those at most risk of severe disease with the current variants remain those who are immunosuppressed for instance, those on chemotherapy, those with bone marrow and solid organ transplants, and those over 65 years of age and/or those with comorbid conditions such as diabetes, chronic heart failure, COPD/chronic lung disease, chronic kidney disease, and chronic liver disease, says Dana Hawkinson, MD, the medical director of infection prevention and control at the University of Kansas Health System in Kansas City.

For most people who get infected with KP.2 or another FLiRT variant, Dr. Hawkinson expects symptoms to be the same as with other recent variants like JN.1.

Common symptoms include:

If you have mild symptoms, stay at home to avoid spread, and if you have severe symptoms, contact your medical provider.

Hawkinson recommends testing to confirm infection status and taking the antiviral medication Paxlovid (nirmatrelvir and ritonavir) if you are among those at risk for severe disease.

Based on what we know so far about KP.2, Jones-Lopez urges the public to keep calm and proceed with caution.

[4]

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New FLiRT COVID Variant KP.2 Becomes Dominant - Everyday Health