Covid-19 is now a chapter in the past after claiming millions of lives in two years and putting people in lockdowns for what felt like an eternity. But as people move forward, the crucial question remains: are nations truly ready for the next pandemic that could emerge from a new coronavirus variant?
Researchers at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology, which was blamed for lab-based origin for the pandemic, have made a new nanovaccine that promises universal protection against all major Covid-19 variants and could shield against future coronavirus mutants.
The team behind the new vaccine at the Wuhan Institute claimed that current vaccines, while effective in preventing Sars-CoV-2 infection and reducing mortality rates, fall short of providing comprehensive protection against all virus variants, South China Morning Post reported.
The team has developed an intranasal nanoparticle vaccine which combines coronavirus epitopes—specific antigen components that activate the immune system—with the blood protein ferritin. It said that the vaccine has shown promise in offering protection against multiple variants, including Delta, Omicron, and the WIV04 strain, an early variant identified in Wuhan, the epicenter of the pandemic in 2020.
“The ongoing and future pandemics caused by Sars-CoV-2 variants and mutations underscore the need for effective vaccines that provide broad-spectrum protection,” the researchers wrote in a paper published in peer-reviewed journal ACS Nano in June.
“Our constructed nanovaccine targeting the conserved epitopes of the pre-existing neutralising antibodies can serve as a promising candidate for a universal Sars-CoV-2 vaccine.”
The World Health Organization and scientists globally have examined the origins of the virus, with most concluding that it likely spread from animals to humans in China. However, the head of US intelligence last year that there was no evidence that the Covid-19 virus was created in the Chinese government’s Wuhan research lab.
This century has seen two major outbreaks caused by a similar type of coronavirus: the Covid-19 pandemic and the 2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak. Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), another coronavirus-driven illness, has infected several thousand people since it was detected in 2012.
Researchers caution that ongoing mutations of the coronavirus are likely to produce new strains, some of which could be highly infectious and potentially trigger future outbreaks or even another global pandemic.
How Nanovaccine Was Developed?
The nanovaccine was developed by merging epitopes—short peptides with conserved sequences in the S2 region of the coronavirus—with ferritin derived from Helicobacter pylori. This ferritin is expressed in Escherichia coli cells, where it self-assembles into nanoparticles. These nanoparticles are then isolated and concentrated from the bacterial cells to create a vaccine that can be administered intranasally, offering an alternative to traditional injections, according to South China Morning Post.
In preclinical trials, mice given the nanovaccine, followed by two booster doses within 42 days, exhibited elevated levels of Immunoglobulin G antibodies compared to controls, with these levels remaining high even after six months. When these mice were exposed to various coronavirus variants, including Omicron and Delta, they demonstrated enhanced resistance to virus-induced lung symptoms.
The vaccine’s antibodies were shown to effectively bind to epitopes from a range of coronavirus strains, including those responsible for MERS, bird flu, and swine flu, highlighting its broad neutralizing capabilities. According to the research team, this nanoparticle vaccine has significant potential as a broad-spectrum solution for multiple coronaviruses.
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