As the pandemic came previous years, thousands of institutions are trying to make the vaccine for this coronavirus pandemic. At present 178 vaccines are in development stage in which 27 are in human trial phase. In these 11 vaccines are in stage 3 human trial which is considered the ultimate stage to test the efficiency of any vaccine. In this post we are going to discuss the techniques by which scientists are making the covid-19 vaccine.
It is a good thing about covid-19 that it is similar to SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) and MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) about 90 percent. As there have been lot of work done in these two cases, Scientists have not to start from scratch. The computed data helps a lot to understand the nature and type of the virus. All of these vaccines are making on 5 basic techniques which we will elaborate in easy language to understand.
1. DISABLED VIRUS METHOD: (Sinovac)
This is the oldest method by which vaccines are being made. In this technique the virus has been killed by heating or any other techniques. This disabled virus can`t make the disease but potent enough to give lesson to our immune system to fight against the virus. Then this disabled virus is poured into injection to push into animal or human bod. In response our body make memory cells which work when the original virus attack happens. These memory cells then created a large number of T-cells to destroy the virus.
Worked well in Salk polio and Rabbies.
2.SPIKE PROTEIN METHOD: (Sanofi- Glaxo Smithkline )
The process of making these vaccines are same to the previous one. But in this case without taking the whole disabled virus only the spike protein structure of the disabled virus is taken which encircled the virus. They are injected in same technique and thus memory cell created for the virus.
Worked well in Shingles and HPV.
3.VIRAL VECTOR METHOD: (AstraZenca)
This method is also known as “Trojan Horse Method”. In this method the dangerous virus (corona virus) is put into another virus which is relatively less dangerous(common cold adenovirus). When this is injected in human body mild common cold appears but inresponse, immune system not only create memory cells against common cold also against that particular dangerous virus too.
4.DNA CODE METHOD: (Inovio)
In this method snippets of the coronavirus spike protein`s DNA code are used to alert our immune system. In this process a vector like plasmid is used which carry the DNA code of the spike protein of coronavirus. Then it is injected in human body to create memory cells to fight against the coronavirus if attacks.
5.RNA CODE METHOD:
This method is similar to the previous method but the only difference is this here RNA is used instead of DNA. Same way it helps to create memory cells in our body which will work against the virus attack. No RNA vaccine has approved for used in human body till now. This is first successfully done by Moderna Therapeutics that discover vaccine just in 42 days which usually take years.
We still don’t know which vaccine will come first and which will be more effective but it is sure that humanity came a long way to fight and get success with any type of virus including the present coronavirus. Till then we have to keep maintain social distancing and using masks in public area.