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
Source