Initial tests in mice of a potential coronavirusvaccine delivered via a fingertip-sized patch have shown it can induce an immune response against the new coronavirus at levels that might prevent infection, US scientists said on Thursday.
A team at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in the United States said they were able to move quickly in developing a potential coronavirus vaccine after working on other coronaviruses that cause Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS).
“WE KNEW EXACTLY WHERE TO FIGHT”
“These two viruses, which are closely related to SARS-CoV-2 teach us that a particular protein, called a spike protein, is important for inducing immunity against the virus,” said Andrea Gambotto, an associate professor at Pittsburgh. “We knew exactly where to fight this new virus.”
The Pittsburgh researchers cautioned that because the animals have not been tracked for very long as yet, it is too early to say whether and for how long the immune response against coronavirus lasts.
But they said that in comparable tests in mice with their MERS experimental vaccine, a sufficient level of antibodies was produced to neutralize the virus for at least a year.
So far, the antibody levels of the SARS-CoV-2 vaccinated animals seem to be following the same trend, they said in peer-reviewed study in the journal EBioMedicine.