All-Purpose COVID Vaccine Courtesy of U.S. Army

WRAIR’s COVID-19 vaccine.

U.S. Army photo by Mike Walters

"Walter Reed’s Spike Ferritin Nanoparticle COVID-19 vaccine, or SpFN, completed animal trials earlier this year with positive results. Phase 1 of human trials, wrapped up this month, again with positive results that are undergoing final review,

"We're testing our vaccine against all the different variants, including Omicron."

"We want to wait for those clinical data to be able to kind of make the full public announcements, but so far everything has been moving along exactly as we had hoped."

"With Omicron, there's no way really to escape this virus. You're not going to be able to avoid it. So I think pretty soon either the whole world will be vaccinated or have been infected."

"We need to evaluate it in the real-world setting and try to understand how does the vaccine perform in much larger numbers of individuals who have already been vaccinated with something else initially…or already been sick"   Dr. Kayvon Modjarrad, director of Walter Reed’s infectious diseases branch

DefenseOne.com

A scientist with the Emerging Infectious Disease branch of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research conducts studies to find a vaccine for COVID-19 in July 2020. Shawn Fury, Army

In development for the past two years, a vaccine has been brought to Stage 1 trial at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland, the product of Army scientists. Pre-human trials were conducted on monkeys with promising results. The vaccine is now in its first human trial, being tested for safety on human volunteers.

"Since September of 2020 there have been five SARS-CV-2 variants of concern -- Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and now the current, Omicron."

"So, obviously, innovative approaches are needed [to counter COVID and its many emerging mutations]."

"I don't want anyone to think that pan-coronovirus vaccines are literally around the corner in a month or two."

Dr.Anthony Fauci, head, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

$43 million in research grants has been issued by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, to a varied number of academic institutions in a bid to help develop a pan-coronavirus vaccine. The emergence of COVID-19 was not the first time a coronavirus came along to surprise the scientific community, posing a dangerous threat to public health.

 

When SARS emerged in 2002 in China, it spread rapidly around the globe, suspected of having caused 43 deaths in Canada alone; its mortality rate was higher than COVID's, but it was not as infectious. Because the virus so debilitated those it infected, the virus itself prevented its own effective transmission. For a virus to be successful in replicating in its human host, it ideally would want to keep its victims alive, and relatively medically stable.

SARS still succeeded in infecting almost eight thousand people, killing 1,000 of those it infected in 29 countries it spread within. 

 

Saudi Arabia identified the presence of MERS (MERS-CoV), a coronavirus respiratory illness that spread to several countries, claiming 800 lives. Recently a hybrid of MERS was discovered -- NeoCov, discovered in a bat population, but not yet spread to humans, though researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Wuhan University believe it is just a matter of time before it becomes another zoonotic, jumping the species barrier.

NeoCov coronavirus found in bats may pose threat to humans in future, scientists caution

The original COVID mRNA vaccines matched some genetic sequences, diminishing their effectiveness by reducing illness against newer strains of the coronavirus. Both Pfizer and Moderna, the original pharmaceuticals to use mRNA techniques in their formulations, are now restructuring their vaccines to more directly address the Omicron strain which proved able to evade the properties of the vaccine's effectiveness against Delta.

 

The target of a pan-coronavirus vaccine would be the genetic code common to virus sub=variants. This is a challenge that could take a length of time counted in months or extend to years, according to scientists hoping to produce a universal COVID vaccine. COVID-19 has demonstrated its capacity for mutations, raising concerns the virus will remain a threat to contend with on a long-term basis. 

 

Appeals for an all-purpose vaccine have increased since the emergence of the COVID variants in a desperate bid to find a vaccine to create lasting immunity against all potential mutations. A precedent was set when Linfa Wang, a virologist with Duke-NUS Medical School tested antibodies of SARS survivors from Singapore to discover that people who had received COVID vaccine saw their immune system generate "super-antibodies" able to neutralize both SARS viruses and other coronaviruses. 

 

A service member of the United States Forces Korea receives the first round of the COVID vaccine. Photo by HANDOUT /US FORCES KOREA/AFP via Getty Images

 

Spain, Anxious to Invite the Holiday Crowd to Return Unleashed a Viral Storm

Spread of a SARS-CoV-2 variant across Europe, summer 2020

"From the spread of 20A.EU1, it seems clear that the measures in place were often not sufficient to stop onward transmission of introduced variants this summer."

"[There was] no evidence that the variant's spread is due to a mutation that increases transmission or impacts clinical outcomes."

"I've not seen any variant with this sort of dynamic for as long as I've been looking at genomic sequences of coronavirus in Europe."

Emma Hodcroft, evolutionary geneticist, University of Basel, Switzerland

"We need more studies like this to find mutations that have risen to high frequency in the population, and then reverse-engineer them to see whether they make the virus more transmissible."

Joseph Fauver, genetic epidemiologist, Yale University

 

"We can see the virus has been introduced multiple times in several countries and many of these introductions have gone on to spread through the population."

Taqnja Stadler, professor of computational evolution, ETH Zurich

Research suggests that people returning from holiday in Spain played a key role in transmitting the virus across Europe © Andy Rain/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

 

The SARS-CoV-2 virus continues its seemingly endless trajectory, moving at speed throughout the globe, mutating constantly, throwing up new clues and forcing old ones to be abandoned, as the medical-scientific community around the world grapples with the conundrum that it presents, unlike any previous coronavirus in its intensity, infectiousness and deathly consequences for many. As much as has been discerned to the present, it is increasingly obvious that much, much more needs to be revealed and understood before science and medicine can gain a modicum of confidence it will in time tame the epidemic.

 

The latest revelation that has been unveiled is that a coronavirus variant originating in Spanish farm workers spread with rapidity over much of Europe since the summer months, now accounting for the majority of all new COVID-19 cases in a number of countries -- and in the United Kingdom, accounting for over 80 percent of new infections. The spread has been seen as nothing less than extraordinary by an international team of scientists tracking the virus through the genetic mutations it has undergone. The variant, named 20A.EU1 is described in a research paper on the cusp of publication.

It would appear from the team's investigative work that people returning after holidaying in Spain have played a fundamental role in the transmission of the virus across Europe. Stirring the question whether the second wave now sweeping the continent might have been diminished through improved screening techniques at airports and allied transportation hubs. There is little doubt that Spain hosted the current mutated strain, since each variant is identified by its own genetic signature, enabling tracing to the place where it originated.

Scientific teams in Switzerland and Spain now rush to examine the variant's behaviour in hopes of establishing whether it may be more deadly or more infectious than other strains. Dr.Hodcroft, lead author of the study, emphasized that 20A.EU1 is unlike any version of the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing     COVID-19 she has heretofore encountered. Her team has been collaborating with virology laboratories to establish whether 20A.EU1 carries a certain mutation in the "spike protein" the virus makes use of to enable entry into human cells.

Mutations eventuate from all viruses, developing changes in individual letters of their genetic code which can group into new variants and strains. SARS-CoV-2 has another mutation named D614G which has been identified and is believed to make the virus more infectious. The new variant with its six distinctive genetic mutations emerged among agricultural workers in northeast Spain in June and swiftly moved through the local population, according to the study.

"One variant, aided by an initial super-spreading event, can quickly become prevalent", Inaki Comas, head of the SeqCOVID-Spain consortium studying the virus, noted. "Risky behaviour" of holiday-makers in Spain, ignoring social-distancing guidelines, who "continue to engage in such behaviour at home" aided the spread of the new variant, the researchers concluded. The new variant accounted for over eight out of ten cases in the U.K., 80 percent of cases in Spain, 60 percent in Ireland, and up to 40 percent in Switzerland and France.

Europa Press News/Europa Press via Getty Images

Tourists and residents arriving at Pablo Ruiz Picasso Airport in Malaga, Spain, on June 22 after the borders were opened.