Tag: pandemic preparedness

Categories : COVID VaccinesTags :

A Universal Coronavirus Vaccine could Save Millions of Lives in a Future Pandemic

On By ModernMedia
Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash

What if in the years prior to the COVID pandemic, scientists had developed a universal coronavirus vaccine, one that targets parts common to coronaviruses, offering some protection against all strains? Would it have been of help during the pandemic?

A new study suggests if such a vaccine were available at the start of the pandemic, it could have saved millions of lives, prevented suffering, and saved billions of dollars in direct medical and other costs until the strain-specific (ie, SARS-CoV-2) vaccine went through the entire development, testing, and emergency use authorisation process that lasted 10 months.

In this study, published in The Lancet’s eClinicalMedicine, researchers show that having a universal vaccine at the start of the pandemic would have had substantial health and economic benefits under almost all scenarios tested.

In order to determine the value of investing in developing and stockpiling a universal coronavirus vaccine, the team developed a computational model that simulated the entire US population, the introduction and spread of a novel coronavirus like SARS-CoV-2 in 2020 and the resulting health (eg, infections, hospitalisations) and economic (eg, direct medical costs, productivity losses) outcomes.

The experiments simulated what would happen if a universal coronavirus vaccine was available at the start of the COVID pandemic.

Vaccinating with a universal coronavirus vaccine as a standalone intervention (e.g., no face mask use or social distancing) was cost-saving even when its efficacy was as low as 10% and only 10% of the U.S. population received the vaccine.

For example, when a universal coronavirus vaccine has 10% efficacy, vaccinating a quarter of the U.S. population within two months of the start of the pandemic averts an average of 14.6 million infections and saves over $27 billion in direct medical costs.

Such low vaccine coverage at the start of the pandemic could occur if a vaccine were only made available to certain high-risk subpopulations (eg, 65 years and older, the immunocompromised, frontline workers), similar to the approach when mRNA vaccines became available in December 2020.

“COVID-19 was the third major and serious coronavirus epidemic or pandemic following SARS in 2002 and MERS in 2012, thus, we should anticipate a fourth coronavirus outbreak within the next decade or so,” says Peter J. Hotez, MD, PhD, dean of Baylor’s National School of Tropical Medicine and co-director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development.

“A universal vaccine is cost-effective and cost-saving and a priority for advancement.”

A universal coronavirus vaccine was also shown to be highly cost-effective even if a more specific and more efficacious vaccine came to market.

For example, the study shows if it takes four months or longer for a strain-specific vaccine to reach the market, using a universal vaccine was still cost cost-saving.

In a scenario where a strain-specific vaccine has 90% efficacy but is unavailable for two months after the start of the pandemic, the results from the model show that vaccinating only 10% of the population with a universal vaccine that has 10% efficacy at the start of the pandemic can save over $2 billion in societal costs (eg, direct medical costs and productivity losses from absenteeism). Given the time required to develop a strain-specific vaccine during a pandemic to match circulating strains of the virus, this highlights the importance of having a universal vaccine readily available as a stopgap.

“Our study shows the importance of giving as many people as possible in a population at least some degree of immune protection as soon as possible,” explains Bruce Y. Lee, MD, MBA, executive director of PHICOR and professor at CUNY SPH.

“Having a universal vaccine developed, stockpiled, and ready to go in the event of a pandemic could be a game-changer even if a more specific vaccine could be developed three to four months later.”

Generally, results from the model found that a universal vaccine would end up saving money if the cost to get a person vaccinated (eg, cost of the vaccine itself, distribution, administration, storage, research, and development) is as high as $10 390 from a societal perspective.

Source: CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy

Categories : Diseases, Syndromes and Conditions New Compounds and TreatmentsTags :

Searching for Broad-spectrum Antiviral Agents for the Next Pandemic

On By ModernMedia
Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

A new study has identified potential broad-spectrum antiviral agents that can target multiple families of RNA viruses with pandemic potential. The study, published in Cell Reports Medicine, tested an array of innate immune agonists that work by targeting pathogen recognition receptors, and found several agents that showed promise, including one that exhibited potent antiviral activity against members of RNA viral families.

The authors say recent epidemics as well as global climate change and the continuously evolving nature of the RNA genome indicate that arboviruses, viruses spread by arthropods such as mosquitoes, are prime candidates for the next pandemic after COVID. These include Chikungunya virus (CHIKV), Dengue virus, West Nile virus and Zika virus. The researchers write: “Given their already-demonstrated epidemic potential, finding effective broad-spectrum treatments against these viruses is of the utmost importance as they become potential agents for pandemics.”

Led by Gustavo Garcia Jr. in the UCLA Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology, researchers found that several antivirals inhibited these arboviruses to varying degrees. “The most potent and broad-spectrum antiviral agents identified in the study were cyclic dinucleotide (CDN) STING agonists, which also hold promise in triggering an immune defence against cancer,” said senior author Vaithi Arumugaswami, Associate Professor in the UCLA Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology.

“A robust host antiviral response induced by a single dose treatment of STING agonist cAIMP is effective in preventing and mitigating the debilitating viral arthritis caused by Chikungunya virus in a mouse model. This is a very promising treatment modality as Chikungunya virus-affected individuals suffer from viral arthritis years and decades from the initial infection,” Arumugaswami added.

“At molecular level, CHIKV contributes to robust transcriptional (and chemical) imbalances in infected skin cells (fibroblasts) compared to West Nile Virus and ZIKA Virus, reflecting a possible difference in the viral-mediated injury (disease pathogenesis) mechanisms by viruses belonging to different families despite all being mosquito-borne viruses,” said senior author Arunachalam Ramaiah, Senior Scientist in the City of Milwaukee Health Department.

“The study of transcriptional changes in host cells reveals that cAIMP treatment rescues (reverses) cells from the harmful effect of CHIKV-induced dysregulation of cell repair, immune, and metabolic pathways,” Ramaiah added.

The study concludes that the STING agonists exhibited broad-spectrum antiviral activity against both arthropod-borne- and respiratory viruses, including treaded SARS-CoV-2 and Enterovirus D68 in cell culture models.

Garcia notes, “The next step is to develop these broad-spectrum antivirals in combination with other existing antivirals and be made readily available in the event of future respiratory and arboviral disease outbreaks.”

Source: University of California – Los Angeles Health Sciences