Researchers in Texas have made a breakthrough in the rush to vaccinate the world against COVID-19. The team, led by Drs Peter Hotez and Maria Bottazzi from the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development at Baylor College of Medicine, has been developing vaccine prototypes for Sars and Mers since 2011, which they reconstructed to create the new Covid vaccine, dubbed Corbevax, or “the world’s Covid-19 vaccine”.
CORBEVAX can be manufactured cheaply and quickly in low-income countries, without the complications of licensing, patents, or limited supply, as said by the researchers.
Dr. Maria Elena Bottazzi, who worked to develop the vaccine said they developed the vaccine to help the world and it could be a gamechanger.
Developing nations have struggled with vaccination, after limited doses of expensive vaccines were snapped up by wealthier countries.
The US has fully vaccinated 67% of the population and provided a third vaccine dose to more than one-third. This is a stark contrast with a nation like Nigeria, where only 2.2 per cent of the population is fully vaccinated.
“It just is incredibly iniquitous that low-income countries cannot get access to vaccines that will enable them to save their own lives,” says Dr. Keith Martin, a former MP and now executive director of the Consortium of Universities for Global Health in Washington, D.C. Martin, represented Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca from 1993 to 2011.
CORBEVAX could help close the gap
Unlike the mRNA vaccines used in high-income nations, CORBEVAX is produced the same way as more traditional immunizations. The shot uses synthetic virus proteins to induce an immune response, without causing disease — the same way the hepatitis B vaccine works.
The technology to create those types of vaccines is readily available in many countries. What’s more, the background research — effectively, CORBEVAX’s recipe — is available free to anyone.
“Anybody can look at our published data and if they want to, they could even replicate our vaccine without even contacting us,” Bottazzi says. “If you want to develop vaccines that are for the public good, you need to share your knowledge.”
Dr. Bottazzi, and her colleague Dr. Peter Hotez, began their research into the vaccine during the 2003 SARS outbreak, but stopped when that outbreak ended.
When COVID-19 emerged nearly two decades later, they resumed their research at Baylor College of Medicine and the Texas Children’s Center for Vaccine Development. They looked at the genetic makeup of the new virus and realized what they had.
Corbevax’s clinical trial data has yet to be released due to resource constraints, but Texas Children’s hospital said the vaccine was over 90% effective against the original Covid-19 strain and over 80% effective against the Delta variant. The vaccine’s efficacy against the Omicron variant is currently being tested.
In India, where CORBEVAX is already authorized for use, local pharmaceutical company Biological E. Limited is now preparing to manufacture 1.2 billion doses per year.
“If we want to be able to get in front of this pandemic, if we want to stop chasing behind it, we are going to have to vaccinate the world,” cautions Dr. Anne Rimoin, an epidemiologist at UCLA, who warns the next dangerous variant could easily emerge from an unvaccinated population.
“We’re already paying the price of not having an equal distribution of vaccines globally.”
While CORBEVAX was not developed for high-income nations like Canada or the United States, Dr. Bottazzi acknowledges it has already found appeal with some vaccine sceptics, who’ve questioned mRNA technology or are wary of products made by large pharmaceutical companies.
“You have no idea the number of messages we’re getting daily,” Bottazzi says.
“There are so many people that say, this is what I’ve been waiting for, something that comes with a prior history of safety that I’m already familiar with.”
-Global News