COVID-19 Vaccines in the Pipeline, Are Antibodies Adequate?

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus strain SARS-CoV-2 has already led to catastrophic consequences in global physical and psychological health, as well as economic recession [...]

Computational Chemistry to Repurposing Drugs for the Control of COVID-19

“…Although Rappouli et al [3] reported that the development of a human vaccine could take at least 15 years and at least USD 200 million, an alliance of the science society has now achieved this [4]. Besides the hesitation on the authenticity and reported side-effects in a small proportion of people of approved vaccines [141,142], the worldwide vaccination is time consuming, as well as public health being in danger from current virus mutations, which can lead to a prolonged pandemic leading towards a difficult situation [143]. In this rapidly evolving crisis, drug repurposing is considered the quickest way to identify potential drug treatments.…”

The emergence of new strains of SARS-CoV-2. What does it mean for COVID-19 vaccines?

“…A novel strain of coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was first associated with severe acute respiratory disease in late 2019 and has triggered an ongoing pandemic since March 2020 [1][2][3]. The pandemic has already had a serious impact on the global economy and has resulted thus far, to over 2.7 million deaths and over 122 million infections [4].…”

Nucleic Acid Vaccines for COVID-19: A Paradigm Shift in the Vaccine Development Arena

“…Manufacturing clinical-grade mRNA is also a challenging task. With the emergence of the recent COVID-19 pandemic, a significant number of DNA (26 candidates) and mRNA (35 candidates) vaccines (Table 1) are in preclinical and clinical trials despite these limitations, and eventually, two vaccines have been approved from the mRNA platform for mass application [125,126], and one from DNA platform, i.e., ZycovD (Zydus Cadila, India), has been approved [104]. The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines have demonstrated very good efficacy and safety in human trials, despite the evidence of increased risk of blood clots in a small number of subjects.…”

“…However, the long-term safety, vaccine stability and efficacy still need to be established for this platform and is a subject matter of future studies. The efficacy of nucleic acid-based vaccines is hindered by viral mutations, and the approved mRNA vaccines have demonstrated variable reduced efficacy against these mutant strains as compared with the efficacy against original non-mutated strains [125,126]. As viruses are known to mutate, mutations will continue with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and hence, constant modifications of the vaccine are required to be effective against the new variants.…”