A new low cost vaccine for the whole world. With a little Italian DNA. The vaccine created in the United States by Texas Children’s Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine has been approved for emergency use in India. The drug is the result of the work coordinated by Professor Peter Hotez and Professor Maria Elena Bottazzi, a scientist who – as shown by the Infectious Diseases Data Observatory – was born in Italy before moving to Honduras, where she began her academic career. The project led to the production of the vaccine through traditional technology.
“This announcement is an important first step in vaccinating the world and stopping the pandemic. Our vaccine technology offers a path to address an ongoing humanitarian crisis, namely the vulnerability that low- and middle-income countries show against the Delta variant. “Hotez said in a statement.
“Protein-based vaccines have been used extensively to prevent many other diseases, they have been shown to be safe in safety,” Bottazzi said highlighting the accessibility of the drug. The vaccine is the result of decades-long studies that have been the basis for the development of the drug “that will bridge the access gap” to vaccination “created by the most expensive and new vaccine technologies”, which “today are not yet in a position to be quickly subject to global production “.
“This is the first covid-specific vaccine for global health, for low- and middle-income countries around the world. It is a recombinant vaccine that uses technology similar to that of the hepatitis B vaccine,” added Hotez. In India “there are 150 million doses ready and now they will run 100 million doses per month, with production plans for one billion doses,” he told CNN.
The vaccine, called Corbevax, was tested in 2 trials involving 3,000 volunteers, Texas Children’s Hospital reported. In tests, no serious adverse events were reported. The vaccinated subjects developed an immune response associated with 90% protection against the ‘original’ coronavirus and 80% against the Delta variant as regards symptomatic covid.
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