Unexpected properties of popular vaccines – Geekweek at INTERIA.PL

As the world’s largest biotech companies work on vaccines to protect against newly emerging variants of SARS-CoV-2, current solutions may also have the potential to flatten the COVID-19 disease curve. Researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine and Oxford University have conducted studies showing that even Unrelated vaccines may be useful in the fight against COVID-19. It turns out that many vaccines provide patients with cross-resistance to coronaviruses.

through the resistance A phenomenon in which the immune system’s prior exposure to one pathogen, such as the influenza virus, changes the body’s response to another (heterogeneous) pathogen (such as the SARS-CoV-2 virus).

Before the emergence of vaccines for COVID-19, scientists around the world wondered whether current formulations could be useful in protecting against SARS-CoV-2 infection. It turns out that There are vaccines unrelated to SARS-CoV-2that show a certain degree of protection.

Professor C. said: Nathaniel Hubert of Weill Cornell Medicine and lead author of the new work.

However, it was not clear how much such an intervention would help, which populations would be better targeted, and how many of the populations would need to receive unrelated vaccines for the effect to be significant. Professor’s team. Huperta decided to check it out. Scientists used an advanced computational modeling platform – COVID-19 International Modeling Consortium (CoMo) – which is used in a pandemic.

“If you have a model that can be adapted to a specific place and time in the context of the pandemic, you can start to experiment with different conditions for the resilience of the population and see how things might go,” the professor said. Hubert.

Scientists have modeled the probability Effects of interventions with vaccines unrelated to COVID-19 on the population of the United States. Although the names of specific combinations were not mentioned in the published report, the researchers chose mutual protection values ​​consistent with data from Measles, Influenza and Tuberculosis Research. They found that unrelated vaccines, which provide only 5% protection from the dangerous form of COVID-19, significantly reduced the number of cases.

This modeling study demonstrates the inherent power of all vaccines to keep the immune system ready and healthy. It also reinforces everyone’s need to update their vaccination history, especially during a pandemic. Hubert.

The new discovery is a “double victory”. Countries having difficulty distributing enough COVID-19 vaccines can intervene with routine vaccination against other pathogens. In conjunction with non-pharmacological activitiesLike social distancing, hand disinfection, and the use of face masks, the effects can be noticeable. However, we must remember that this is only additional protection – immeasurably worse than a full-fledged vaccine against COVID-19.