Vaccines and genetics

Australian vaccine

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/australian-covid-vaccine-terminated-due-to-hiv-false-positives-20201210-p56mju.html?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=dd61a8472e-briefing-dy-20201211&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-dd61a8472e-44762053

University of Queensland

Fifty million doses ordered by government

200 volunteers in two groups

Aged 18 to 55, and 56 and over, placebo

Phase one trial

Safe and said it produced a strong immune response

Trial terminated; $ 4.5 m (US) lost

Several participants, false positive HIV test results

No health risks

20 million new doses from Oxford University-AstraZeneca and another 11 million from Novavax

US rollout

General Gustave Perna

Factory, Kalamazoo, Michigan

Flight and road

-70 degrees Celsius (-94F)

First doses of vaccine arriving at 145 sites Monday

Tuesday, 425 sites

Wednesday, 66 sites

Half of 6.4 million doses sent out

Pfizer, 50 million in 2020, half to the US

US, 100 million doses

Approved for 16 years and older

Massachusetts-based Moderna, increasing vaccinations to 20 million Americans in 2020

Followed by 200 million Moderna doses

Everyone by June 2021

China vaccine

Inactivated

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-55212787

Sinovac, Beijing, CoronaVac

Arrived in Indonesia, (Turkey, Brazil, Chile)

Another 1.8 m doses due to arrive by January

Fridge temperatures

Phase 3 results 15th December

Production 300 m per year

African continent, $2bn

Latin American and Caribbean, $1bn

Cost?

Moderna, 500 million doses in 2021

AstraZeneca, 700 million doses by April

UK, Christmas five-day relaxation period

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-55279371

Travel from high to low risk areas

Up to three households can stay together, "Christmas bubble" from 23 to 27 December

All four UK nations

Genetic predisposition

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-54832563

Genetic mechanisms of critical illness in Covid-19 Nature, Edinburgh)

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-03065-y

Susceptibility to viral infection

Propensity to develop harmful pulmonary inflammation.

Genetic factors in:

Susceptibility to life threatening infections

Immune-mediated diseases

Host genetic variants

Genome-wide association study

N = 2, 244 critically ill Covid-19 patients

From 208 UK intensive care units

Genome-wide significant associations

Potential for repurposing of licensed medications

Associations with severe COVID

Low expression of IFNAR2 (Chromosome 21)

Results in lower production of interferon

Accounted for nearly 15% of critical Covid-19 cases

Interferons interfere with viral replication

Produce antiviral enzymes to prevent viral replication

Inhibit protein synthesis

Stimulate local immune cells

Cause fever, muscle aches and general malaise

Interferon would need to be given early

WHO SOLIDARITY trial

https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/global-research-on-novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov/solidarity-clinical-trial-for-covid-19-treatments

Interferon had little or no effect on overall mortality, initiation of ventilation and duration of hospital stay in hospitalized patients

Nebulised interferon beta-1a for patients with COVID-19 (12th November)

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(20)30523-3/fulltext

High expression of TYK2 (Chromosome 19)

Up regulation of inflammation

Rheumatoid arthritis drug, Baricitinib targets this biological mechanism

Large-scale randomised clinical trials will be essential

Видео Vaccines and genetics канала Dr. John Campbell