{"id":210408,"date":"2020-07-15T18:16:17","date_gmt":"2020-07-15T18:16:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=210408"},"modified":"2020-07-17T06:16:03","modified_gmt":"2020-07-17T06:16:03","slug":"hopes-rise-of-a-covid-19-vaccine-breakthrough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=210408","title":{"rendered":"Hopes rise of a Covid-19 vaccine breakthrough"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">TWO trials in the UK and US show volunteers injected with experimental jabs have signs of immunity against the disease<\/h3>\n<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\">Martin Robinson, Sam Blanchard \u2013 Daily Mail July 15, 2020<\/h1>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><strong>UK scientists are &#8217;80 per cent&#8217; confident that a jab could be ready by September<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><strong>Trials finding that participants develop antibodies and killer T-cells to fight it<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><strong>People in the Oxford study with AstraZeneca are showing signs of immunity<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><strong>And early trials of US-made vaccine by the firm Moderna have been successful<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><strong>Mild side effects are &#8216;a small price to pay&#8217; for protection from Covid, experts say<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-209351\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/Coronavirus-Syringe-Vaccine-Covid-19-768x432.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"540\" height=\"304\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/Coronavirus-Syringe-Vaccine-Covid-19-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/Coronavirus-Syringe-Vaccine-Covid-19-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/Coronavirus-Syringe-Vaccine-Covid-19.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 540px) 100vw, 540px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Hopes for a working Covid-19 vaccine are growing as two projects in the UK and US have reported promising results in their early experiments.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Teams from Oxford University and the American pharmaceutical company Moderna have both revealed people in their studies are showing signs of immunity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Each has been working on separate experimental jabs for months to try to protect millions of people from catching the coronavirus in future<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Oxford scientists have already said they are &#8217;80 per cent&#8217; confident they can have their jab available by September.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">People being given the Oxford vaccine have been developing antibodies and white blood cells called T cells which will help their bodies fight off the virus if they get infected, it is reported.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">And experts at Moderna, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said participants in their trial &#8211; of a different type of vaccine &#8211; all successfully developed antibodies.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The vaccines work by tricking the body into thinking it&#8217;s infected with Covid-19 and causing it to produce immune substances that have the ability to destroy it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">While early research focused on antibodies, scientists are increasingly turning to a type of immunity called T cell immunity \u2014 which is controlled by white blood cells \u2014 which has shown signs of promise.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">One source on the Oxford project told ITV News: &#8216;An important point to keep in mind is that there are two dimensions to the immune response: antibodies and T-cells.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">&#8216;Everybody is focused on antibodies but there is a growing body of evidence suggesting that the T-cells response is important in the defence against coronavirus.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Oxford&#8217;s phase 3 trial is involving around 8,000 people across the UK and also up to 6,000 people in Brazil and South Africa, where the jab may be easier to test because more people are infected with the coronavirus.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The vaccine is being manufactured by AstraZeneca, based in Cambridge, England, and millions of doses have already been ordered by Number 10 in the hope that it will work.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">ITV&#8217;s political editor Robert Peston wrote in a <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a style=\"color: #ccffff; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.itv.com\/news\/2020-07-15\/positive-news-is-coming-on-oxford-covid-19-vaccine-writes-robert-peston\"><strong>blog <\/strong><\/a><\/span>that he has been told to expect good news on the trial later this week, with results expected in the British medical journal The Lancet on Thursday.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The piece said: &#8216;Apparently the vaccine is generating the kind of antibody and T-cell (killer cell) response that the researchers would hope to see.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">In the early stages researchers will want to see that the jab is safe for people to take and doesn&#8217;t cause serious side effects, and also that it seems to be stimulating the immune system in the right way.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">If it passes these checkpoints researchers are expected to move on to even larger tests with thousands more members of the public.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">In its own tests Moderna, the US pharmaceutical company, reports that its vaccine has passed these early milestones and now plans to move on to bigger trials.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Researchers at the company last night announced that all 45 volunteers in its early phase had developed immune responses after being given the vaccine.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">They also\u00a0found the jab \u2014 one of the front-runners in the global coronavirus vaccine race \u2014 was safe and no participants suffered any serious side effects.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">But more than half reported mild or moderate reactions such as fatigue, headache, chills, muscle aches or pain at the injection site.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Scientists said side effects were a &#8216;small price to pay&#8217; for protection against Covid-19.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_205762\" style=\"width: 370px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/bill-gates-fauci-united-states-vaccine.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-205762\" class=\"wp-image-205762\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/bill-gates-fauci-united-states-vaccine-768x400.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"360\" height=\"188\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/bill-gates-fauci-united-states-vaccine-768x400.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/bill-gates-fauci-united-states-vaccine-300x156.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/bill-gates-fauci-united-states-vaccine.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 360px) 100vw, 360px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-205762\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dr Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Dr Anthony Fauci, the US government&#8217;s top infectious disease expert, said: &#8216;No matter how you slice this, this is good news.&#8217;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Moderna was the first US company to start human testing of a vaccine for the novel coronavirus on March 16, 66 days after the genetic sequence of the pathogen was released by China.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">It&#8217;s now preparing to start a 30,000-person trial later this month to prove the vaccine really is strong enough to protect against the coronavirus.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The share price of the company surged on the news as it stoked hopes of progress in the global battle against Covid-19.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The US federal government is supporting Moderna&#8217;s vaccine with nearly half a billion dollars in funding.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Its vaccine, known as mRNA-1273, works using ribonucleic acid (RNA), which is\u00a0a chemical messenger in human bodies that contains instructions for making proteins.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The jab introduces RNA which programmes the body to make proteins that look like those found on the surface of the coronavirus, which triggers the immune system to react because it recognises those proteins as a danger &#8211; even though they aren&#8217;t actually attached to a virus and can&#8217;t cause any harm.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">This then trains the body to recognise these as a foreign invader, and mount an immune response against it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The results, published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, involved three groups of 15 volunteers aged 18-55.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The groups tested 25, 100 or 250 micrograms of the vaccine. Everyone got two doses, 28 days apart.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The team reported a dose-dependent effect, whereby the participants grew a larger antibody response the higher their vaccination dose was.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">In comparison, the University of Oxford team&#8217;s jab works by injecting a damaged part of the real coronavirus that has been attached to another, harmless, virus.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">It&#8217;s\u00a0a type of immunisation known as a recombinant viral vector vaccine.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Researchers place genetic material from the coronavirus into another virus that\u2019s been modified. They will then inject the virus into a human, hoping to produce an immune response against SARS-CoV-2.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The carrier virus, weakened by genetic engineering so it doesn&#8217;t make people ill, is a type of virus called an adenovirus, the same as those which cause common colds, that has been taken from chimpanzees.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">If the vaccines can successfully mimic the spikes that are found on the outside of Covid-19 inside a person&#8217;s bloodstream, and stimulate the immune system to create special antibodies to attack it, this could train the body to destroy the real coronavirus if they get infected with it in future.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">It could be developed so rapidly by Professor Sarah Gilbert, a vaccinology expert, and her team because they already had a base vaccine for similar coronaviruses.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Professor Gilbert said earlier this month that protection from a jab against coronavirus should last for several years at least.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">She told MPs she was optimistic that a vaccine would provide \u2018a good duration of immunity\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">She is the world-renowned expert leading an Oxford University team devising a vaccine, so her claim could help to dispel the fears over how long protection against Covid-19 might last.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Concerns had been raised after those with other types of coronavirus \u2013 which are less dangerous and cause the common cold \u2013 were able, in tests, to be reinfected within a year.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">But Professor Gilbert told the Commons science and technology committee there may be a better result from a vaccine than the natural immunity acquired when individuals simply recover from a virus.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">She said: \u2018Vaccines have a different way of engaging with the immune system, and we follow people in our studies using the same type of technology to make the vaccines for several years, and we still see strong immune responses.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">\u2018It\u2019s something we have to test and follow over time \u2013 we can\u2019t know until we actually have the data.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">&#8216;But we\u2019re optimistic based on earlier studies that we will see a good duration of immunity, for several years at least, and probably better than naturally-acquired immunity.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The key question is whether the vaccine will protect them from becoming infected, or simply make them less ill. It may also work less well in older people because their immune systems are weaker.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Sir John Bell, regius professor of medicine at Oxford University, also gave evidence to the committee, warning that the UK must \u2018prepare for the worst\u2019 this winter, rather than rely on the development of a vaccine.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">But he said he has now seen tests for coronavirus of a good standard which can produce a result in a \u2018few minutes\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Sir John said: \u2018That would be transformative because we could all test ourselves regularly and test our kids after they\u2019ve been off to a rave and all that stuff.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">He also urged Britons to have the flu jab to \u2018avoid pandemonium in A&amp;E departments\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Trials of a potential antibody treatment that could protect older people from coronavirus have also started.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Instead of a traditional vaccine the proposed treatment would see patients given a three-minute infusion of antibodies to the virus that could provide protection for up to six months.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">For people whose immune systems do not respond to a vaccine, including those taking immunosuppressant drugs or undergoing chemotherapy, it could provide alternative way of developing resistance to the virus.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Older people also have less of a response to vaccines so the antibody infusion could help give extra protection for older people who are more at risk from coronavirus, reported The Times.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca are trialling the treatment and the drug maker is also working with Oxford University on a potential vaccine.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">As well as preventing people catching the disease antibody therapy can help people who have caught it recover more quickly.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Sir Mene Pangalos, who heads the company&#8217;s research into treating respiratory diseases told The Times: &#8216;There&#8217;s a population who are elderly that [may not] get a particularly good immune response to the vaccine,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">&#8216;In those instances you might want to prophylactically treat those patients with an antibody to give them additional protection.&#8217;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">It is not yet clear if the treatment will work and the first human trial will only have around 30 participants.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">If no safety issues arise larger scale testing could begin in the autumn.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Sir Mene added: &#8216;We&#8217;re going to do this as fast as we can. Obviously we&#8217;ve got to show that you&#8217;re safe but antibodies are well known entities &#8211; it should be safe.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The trial comes following initial research at Vanderbilt University in the United States which looked into monoclonal antibodies, which can imitate the antibodies created by the body after being infected by coronavirus.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">However the antibody therapy is not expected to be an alternative to a vaccine as it will cost a much while not providing protection for as long a period of time<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-8525393\/Hopes-build-UK-Covid-vaccine-Oxford-drug-trials-work.html\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There will be &#8216;side effects&#8217;, say scientists, but a they will be a &#8216;small price to pay&#8217; for protection against Covid-19 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":209351,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[105,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-210408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coronavirus","category-Health"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=210408"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":210413,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210408\/revisions\/210413"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/209351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=210408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=210408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=210408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}