COVID 19 vaccine or Ghost in a Jar

The entire world is running after developing a vaccine for COVID 19.  Many countries have even allowed great dilution in their new drug development norms/policies and scientific temper because, according to all those countries, a vaccine for COVID 19 alone may save human life, therefore vaccine must be brought out at any cost and even if such an effort demands some degree of dilution of science’ is needed.

Paradoxically the same scientific community comprised of clinicians, epidemiologists, virologists and the cohort of other allied experts are also releasing all most every day several new clippings about the pathology of the disease including some additional clinical symptoms.   In several occasions, one scientific revelation contradicts and questions the earlier observation and even defeat the basic trust of people in science.  But thanks to the ‘novelty’ of the virus, everything is absorbed as part of continuous learning by the scientific community and that is how the world also must respond.

 

In essence all of them collectively and individually admit the fact that their knowledge about the virus and the disease are quite limited as on date. But some members of the cohorts of the experts never fail to scare people by fear mongering about the disease.   

The big question is how we can develop a vaccine when both the pathogen and the disease remains enigma?  Once the vaccine is developed, to test its protective nature, the vaccine recipient healthy subject needs to be challenged with live virus.  What would the consequence when the scientific world does not know much about either the virus or the disease and under such circumstances the live viruses is intentionally given to healthy people?

Is it to cover up the ignorance and inability, the scientific world especially the medical fraternity has sought asylum under fear mongering.  Greater the fear that prevails among people about the disease and the virus, the ruling dispensation may not shy to spent some money for research to develop new drugs or vaccine or in taking preventive measures. 

Until the pandemic is over, the cohorts of experts will be also in great demand both by the people and policy makers.  Who does not have the need to be needed?

Is it so easy to develop a vaccine for COVID 19 to prevent the pandemic?

From the layman’s point of view, it is quite easy to develop a vaccine because the definition of vaccine is nothing but any substance that would elicit immune response to protect against one or many diseases.  Therefore it is quite easy to achieve one part of the vaccine definition i.e., elicit immune response with the virion or something isolated from the same.  All most every antigen would elicit an immune response directly and the same is being done by the vaccine also through cell mediated immune activation. 

The moot question is about the protective nature of the antibody or the appropriate cell mediated immune response that has been elicited by the vaccine? 

From the perspective of developing a vaccine which is protective against a given pathogen is not that easy because such process requires proper identification and characterization of the pathogen, the antigenic site (s), cross reactivity, specificity etc.  

  

Besides all the above, the disease preventive and safety aspects of the vaccine also we need to establish undoubtedly. 

Giving a vaccine to human being and establishing the vaccine has elicited some immune response is quite easy.  But the immune response elicited due to the vaccine intervention would whether protect the person from the pathogen when the person is challenged or exposed to live pathogen after vaccination is the real challenge. 

When we know the science of the pathogen very well, then the risk of vaccinating willing, consented participants and then challenging the people with the live pathogen can be taken up where the risk possibility is limited. 

But if the science still remains ignorant about the pathogen- novel coronavirus, susceptibility factors and why some people remain asymptomatic, why some doesn’t even contract the virus, why some develop disease, whether the initial load of the virus matters for infection or the inoculum size is not at all an influencing factor in causing infectivity, why all age groups show equal susceptibility to the virus although the vulnerability of the people is not so equal among different age groups…….. when all the above questions does not have clear answer, then going for vaccine trial is deadly, especially the challenge phase. 

In this paradoxical situation, vaccinating people and then challenging them with live virus would be like a test tube experiment in an ordinary laboratory with limited utility value.  But the risk is quite big and finally the vaccine may prove to be ‘ghost in a jar’.  Further, such scientific approach will be nothing short of the claims and belief systems of many faith healers in India who claim cow urine to toxic metals for curing diseases whether such healers are institutionally qualified or not.  

By mixing some herbs, metals and mineral, the faith healers often claim they could cure all diseases on earth and one such wonder drug of the faith healing system is ‘Rasagandhi mezhu’ a formulation that contains mercurial, arsenic, lead and other toxic elements. 

Ironically many institutionally qualified healers from faith based healing system secretly and or openly engages in cross pathy (prescribing and practicing allopathic drugs) and never seems to believe own system.

Another question also we must ask about the pseudo protection that can be observed in some patients post vaccination and which may get interpreted as protective nature of the vaccine.   Many people have not even shown positivity for virus and many remains asymptomatic.  Let us assume a situation where majority of the people chosen for the vaccination programme have inherent resistance mechanism to protect them from even contracting the virus means, the challenge experiment after vaccination may prove the vaccine to be very effective.  But in reality the vaccine may not have any protective effect which we may realize later and such realization may come at heavy cost and human causality.

Further, relatively less effective vaccination programme may facilitate the virus to go for a rampage in near future. 

Post vaccination, people are likely to return to normal life, bit casual and are likely to develop passive confidence against the infection due to vaccination.  Imagine if the efficiency of the vaccine is wrongly understood and interpreted means, post- vaccination, a new surge of pandemic by novel coronavirus is quite possible.  Blaming science or any other allied group for the failure of vaccine will not to serve anything worthwhile to humanity.   It is wise to go for vaccine development only after complete science of virus and the disease are unravelled and until then antiviral drug development approach alone is safe.

Even thinking or talking about vaccine against COVID 19 is quite premature now because the science about the virus and the infection caused by the virus are not completely understood.  

By diluting the policy of new development and bypassing several pre-clinical studies to fast track the development of the vaccine may sound nobler but the potential risk such vaccine may contribute to the pandemic in near future will be incalculable especially when science is ignorant about the virus.  The vaccine for COVID 19 should not prove to be ‘ghost in a jar’ in future.