A closer look at the ingredient list for Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine reveals a simple product safe for human use.
Recent reports found that Moderna’s mRNA-1273 vaccine is over 94% effective against Covid-19 infection. This news is a bright spot in what has been a dark and challenging year.
Now that the vaccine is set to be rolled out, let’s take a look at the ingredient list.
The Basics
Moderna’s mRNA-1273 is an mRNA vaccine made up of strands of RNA packed into lipid nanoparticles. These particles, when injected into the human body will fuse to the cell membrane of human cells and allow the mRNA to gain access to the machinery needed to translate it into viral proteins. …
In an open letter, 80 health experts call the approach ‘a dangerous fallacy unsupported by the scientific evidence’
Herd immunity has received significant attention since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. Several countries hoped that herd immunity would offer protection against the virus, and some even went so far as to loosen restrictions to allow for the natural spread of the virus. In an open letter published today in The Lancet, dozens of health officials publicly criticized herd immunity approaches to slowing Covid-19 as flawed and dangerous.
Herd immunity relies on an adequate number of immune individuals within a population such that a pathogen is unable to spread. Beyond that, herd immunity differs widely from one disease to another. Vaccines offer a powerful example of how herd immunity can control the spread of a disease. …
People have started receiving doses of the BNT162b2 vaccine in the U.K. This article details the ingredients included in the vaccine.
On December 8 a U.K. woman named Margaret Keenan became the first person to receive a Covid-19 vaccine. At age 90, Keenan marked the beginning of what will be a broad global effort to vaccinate people against Covid-19.
As doses make their way to the United States, this article details the ingredients included in Pfizer’s BNT162b2 vaccine.
The basics
BNT162b2, much like the vaccine being offered by Pfizer-BioNTech, is an mRNA vaccine made up of strands of RNA packed into lipid nanoparticles. These particles, when injected into the human body, will fuse to the cell membrane of human cells and allow the mRNA to gain access to the machinery needed to translate it into viral proteins. …
Clinical trials for a Covid-19 vaccine for children are only just beginning. Most kids will not be vaccinated until later in 2021
As encouraging news emerges about a possible vaccine against Covid-19, the natural question becomes “When will I get mine?”
There is still no definite date that vaccines will be widely available, but one demographic can bet on not being immunized during the initial rollout of Covid-19 vaccines — kids.
Drug company Moderna announced that they will begin to recruit for clinical trials looking at the efficacy of their mRNA-1273 vaccine in adolescents. With promising efficacy and safety data emerging, this begs the question — why the delay in testing efficacy in children?
How Vaccines For Children Are Made
Many feel that children are among the most vulnerable populations in society. Many social and medical protections are first extended to safeguard children before adults. But the opposite is true when it comes to experimental drugs and therapies including vaccines. …
New press release data reveals a broadly effective vaccine that could be approved by the end of the year
As people return to work after a holiday weekend, another bright spot in the race to develop a Covid-19 vaccine has emerged. In a press release, pharmaceutical company Moderna released the final results of its phase three COVE trial, indicating that its experimental mRNA-1273 vaccine is more than 94% effective against Covid-19.
The firm has begun the process of approval in various countries including the U.S. A meeting with the Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccine and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee is set for December 17. …
Logistical hangups threaten to hinder the release of the two most anticipated Covid-19 treatments
Earlier this week, news broke that Pfizer’s much anticipated Covid-19 vaccine was found to be 90% effective. This news raised hopes of a vaccine being available by the end of 2020. Around the same time, the FDA granted emergency authorization for Eli Lilly’s monoclonal antibody therapy bamlanivimab. News of these two therapies moving one step closer to availability shed a ray of hope on what is shaping up to be the most challenging phase of the pandemic. Before hopes rise too much, there are a few challenges that need to be addressed before these therapies are widely available.
Getting In Your Cells
Pfizer’s experimental mRNA vaccine is currently leading the effort to protect against Covid-19. mRNA vaccines are a new technology that relies on introducing the genetic code for viral antigens into the human body. This allows the immune system to generate an immune response to the antigens while avoiding the infection itself. Vaccines generally follow this principle in one way or another, but recent technologies have broadened the way that immunity is achieved. …
Soaring demand and infusions of public dollars have given pharmaceutical companies a lucrative route to a Covid-19 vaccine
Vaccines may be a poor business model, but events of the last few months show that there is still money to be made. Despite being one of the most influential biomedical discoveries, vaccines continue to be a difficult and expensive product to produce. Between costly scientific development and lengthy clinical trials a vaccine that may only be administered once — as a truly effective vaccine would — may leave pharmaceutical companies absorbing losses at the end of the day. …
Drug combinations may be what helps us bridge the gap to an effective vaccine.
Vaccine development is slow. With questions surrounding the durability of immunity and availability of the vaccine, doctors on the front lines of health care are relying on available drug therapies to treat Covid-19. Most Covid-19 patients are often given a cocktail of available therapies, given that no one drug has been shown to be broadly effective against the virus. Several trials are ongoing looking at the effectiveness of drug combinations in the treatment of Covid-19. …
After months of news, articles, and information take a moment to test what you actually know about Covid-19
Who wouldn’t want to return to their days as a student?
Like it or not, you have been run through a virtual crash-course on virology, human disease and public health since December of 2019. Between journal articles, news headlines, Medium articles and word of mouth, each of us has been exposed to information that we likely have never encountered before. Even those of us in the scientific community have had our understanding of viral diseases stretched far beyond what it was prior to Covid-19.
So, with that, why not take a few minutes to see how your knowledge stacks up. To take this test, because Medium has no in-house test taking platform, you’ll need to do it the old fashioned way — with pen and paper. …
The AZD1222 vaccine showed promising results in phase II trials, but questions remain about efficacy and availability
On July 20th the UK pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca released results of their phase I/II trial of the experimental coronavirus vaccine AZD1222. Hopes were raised when findings released in a press release showed that the vaccine stimulated immune response on par with convalescent plasma, with antibodies capable of neutralizing SARS-CoV-2. This news will carry them into the final phase of clinical trials set to begin later this summer to determine large scale efficacy of the vaccine.
The findings published in the Lancet show a strong immune response in participants who received the AZD1222 vaccine. This response involved both antibodies at levels on par with those who had been infected with Covid-19 as well as a strong cellular immune response. When challenged against the virus, antibodies from participants were capable of neutralizing the virus, signaling that this vaccine may be effective in protecting against Covid-19. …
