Virus expert reveals why Thailand chose AstraZeneca’s viral vector vaccine

[Lingba]

On 1/21/2021 at 9:45 AM, rabas said:

 

What kind of doctor?  AZ's vaccine is an entirely new kind called an adendovirus vectored DNA vaccine. This is similar to mRNA vaccines, which are also new. Neither have been previously approved for general human use (until now).

 

They both use a ball (lipid or adendovirus) as a vecotr to deliver a piece of code (DNA or RNA)  in to the cell. The cell then uses the codes to make coronavirus spikes to trigger immunity.  Both types have been researched for a long time.  Read the Vaccines section here in wiki.  

 

Modified (recombinant) adenovirus vectors, including replication incompetent types, theoretically can deliver DNA coding for specific antigens, but as of May 2020 the technology had "yet to yield an effective vaccine for humans"...  A replication-deficient chimpanzee adenovirus vaccine vector (ChAdOx1) is being used in a trial of a COVID-19 vaccine.[44] The vaccine is known as ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 (Jenner Institute) or AZD1222 (AstraZeneca).

 

 

A medical doctor  in fact I spoke with several medical doctors..bottom line is these vaccines have only been out a few months and there are still many questions about them opposed to other other vaccines that took years to properly develop and perfect and know what EXACTLY they do...Truth be told...NOBODY knows yet the effects of these covid vaccines..which is why pregnant mothers and kids are NOT taking them...yet...one big reason is the unknowns regarding effects on fertility

[shdmn]

1 hour ago, Lingba said:

 

A medical doctor  in fact I spoke with several medical doctors..bottom line is these vaccines have only been out a few months and there are still many questions about them opposed to other other vaccines that took years to properly develop and perfect and know what EXACTLY they do...Truth be told...NOBODY knows yet the effects of these covid vaccines..which is why pregnant mothers and kids are NOT taking them...yet...one big reason is the unknowns regarding effects on fertility

Many questions by who?  Where did you get your PhD specializing in Virology?

Quote

A medical doctor  in fact I spoke with several medical doctors

Ssssure you did.  ????

 

These mRNA vaccines have been in development for decades.   Please stop polluting the internet with your FUD.

Edited January 22, 2021 by shdmn

[rabas]

1 hour ago, Lingba said:

 

A medical doctor  in fact I spoke with several medical doctors..bottom line is these vaccines have only been out a few months and there are still many questions about them opposed to other other vaccines that took years to properly develop and perfect and know what EXACTLY they do...Truth be told...NOBODY knows yet the effects of these covid vaccines..which is why pregnant mothers and kids are NOT taking them...yet...one big reason is the unknowns regarding effects on fertility

 

I was dispelling your initial rumour that AZ was an older tried and true vaccine whereas mRNA vaccines are new and unknown. They are surprisingly similar with many years of research behind both. In fact, their technologies were chosen because they promise safer vaccines.

 

If you want new and unknown danger,  try the SARS-2 bat virus that just crossed into humans, about which little is known except its unpredictability and ability to attack almost anywhere in the body, and mutate.

 

Given a chance to take almost any vaccine verses get COVID-19, most people would choose a vaccine. I personally prefer the mRNA for their superior efficacy. 

[Kiujunn]

On 1/21/2021 at 10:45 PM, rabas said:

 

 AZ's vaccine is an entirely new kind called an adendovirus vectored DNA vaccine. This is similar to mRNA vaccines, which are also new. Neither have been previously approved for general human use (until now).

 

Both types have been researched for a long time. 

 

You are basically correct,  but the details are more complicated. What you say is not entirely wrong,  but not completely true either. 

 

Adendovirus vectored DNA vaccines have been approved for Ebola. 

The first one was approved in 2017, the latest one (to my knowledge) was the Ebola vaccine from Johnson&Johnson/Janssen, approved in 2020.

"Anti-tumour" vaccines based on this technology have been in use for much longer. Gene therapy based on this technology has been approved since about 2006.

This technology has been researched for 50 years. 

 

mRNA vaccines should in theory be safer because of 2 fundamental differences:

mRNA does not enter the nucleus of the cell so there is no theoretical danger of it being built into the human genome. DNA does enter the nucleus,  but normal adenoviral DNA is not integrated into the human genome,  and with genetically modified adenoviral DNA (as used in adendovirus vectored DNA vaccine) this has never been observed either. 

Second,  mRNA is unstable and will disappear from the cell within hours or few days. DNA is rather stable. 

 

There has never been a mRNA vaccine approved for humans. 

This technology has been researched for 30 years. 

 

So, yes, both are new,  but mRNA is even newer.

 

As a slightly simplified summary,  what you wrote is correct. 

[Wongkitlo]

Coconuts and Matchicon are reporting that Astrazeneca may pull out of the deal because they don't want to get involved in Thai politics. 

[rickudon]

Various denial posts in this thread. First, how deadly is coronavirus? In Europe, many countries already have a national death rate of 0.1%; the uncertain factor is how many have actually had the virus already. In the UK some random tests put this rate at about 12%. If we assume you need at least 50% of the population to have had the virus to get even close to herd immunity, about 4 times more people will die - As the UK is close to 100,000 dead already, that means about 400,000 dead - but if you need more than 50% getting the virus to get herd immunity, death toll could be higher - maybe about 600,000 (we are not considering vaccination in this). So the final death toll without vaccination could become close to 1% of the population. So your average risk of death is not one in a million, but one in a hundred. Death rates per 1,000  in hospital is about 10 (1%). Overall deaths from Covid are about 14 per 1,000 known infections (1.4%) This is higher because because those in nursing homes may never get hospital treatment (yes, triage already happening, unofficially). Was Spanish flu worse? Maybe not. UK official death toll was 228,000. Covid-19 Pandemic is still going strong, this figure could be beaten.

 

Anecdotally, i know of 4 Covid deaths in the UK - 2 relatives, one in his 80's and a Nursing home, one 73 and previously quite healthy. My ex-wife lost one friend last week and my son a work colleague the week before - both still in their 50's. Just because Thailand has been lucky so far doesn't mean it will continue to be - Eastern Europe was only slightly affected in the 1st wave last spring, but they are catching up fast this winter.

 

The Astra-Zeneca vaccine is of slightly older provenance than the MRA vaccines like Moderna, the technique was used for the Ebola vaccine for instance. And since SARS, a lot of work has been done on coronaviruses and potential vaccines. So the steps to take were quite well understood.

 

Finally, i was curious as to the list of countries India is giving the vaccine to - some have very low coronavirus rates - why were they prioritised? They were small countries, like Maldives, Seychelles and Bhutan - I think they were chosen for advanced testing - to see if the vaccine actually stops transmission - the countries can be vaccinated very quickly as not many vaccines doses needed, and as infection rates currently low there will be time to find out if the virus is actually stopped - in large, heavily infected countries how can you tell if new infections come from infected people or vaccinated people who are just symptomless? Pakistan, Bangladesh understandable as they border India.

[placnx]

19 hours ago, rickudon said:

Various denial posts in this thread. First, how deadly is coronavirus? In Europe, many countries already have a national death rate of 0.1%; the uncertain factor is how many have actually had the virus already. In the UK some random tests put this rate at about 12%. If we assume you need at least 50% of the population to have had the virus to get even close to herd immunity, about 4 times more people will die - As the UK is close to 100,000 dead already, that means about 400,000 dead - but if you need more than 50% getting the virus to get herd immunity, death toll could be higher - maybe about 600,000 (we are not considering vaccination in this). So the final death toll without vaccination could become close to 1% of the population. So your average risk of death is not one in a million, but one in a hundred. Death rates per 1,000  in hospital is about 10 (1%). Overall deaths from Covid are about 14 per 1,000 known infections (1.4%) This is higher because because those in nursing homes may never get hospital treatment (yes, triage already happening, unofficially). Was Spanish flu worse? Maybe not. UK official death toll was 228,000. Covid-19 Pandemic is still going strong, this figure could be beaten.

 

Anecdotally, i know of 4 Covid deaths in the UK - 2 relatives, one in his 80's and a Nursing home, one 73 and previously quite healthy. My ex-wife lost one friend last week and my son a work colleague the week before - both still in their 50's. Just because Thailand has been lucky so far doesn't mean it will continue to be - Eastern Europe was only slightly affected in the 1st wave last spring, but they are catching up fast this winter.

 

The Astra-Zeneca vaccine is of slightly older provenance than the MRA vaccines like Moderna, the technique was used for the Ebola vaccine for instance. And since SARS, a lot of work has been done on coronaviruses and potential vaccines. So the steps to take were quite well understood.

 

Finally, i was curious as to the list of countries India is giving the vaccine to - some have very low coronavirus rates - why were they prioritised? They were small countries, like Maldives, Seychelles and Bhutan - I think they were chosen for advanced testing - to see if the vaccine actually stops transmission - the countries can be vaccinated very quickly as not many vaccines doses needed, and as infection rates currently low there will be time to find out if the virus is actually stopped - in large, heavily infected countries how can you tell if new infections come from infected people or vaccinated people who are just symptomless? Pakistan, Bangladesh understandable as they border India.

Due to the greater infectiousness of the UK variant, in the US epidemiologists are saying vaccination of 80% of the population might be needed for herd immunity. I suppose that this assumes that immunity after an infection is not long-lasting. That is not good news considering your analysis of death rate based on the 50% figure.

 

In Bhutan which has a population of somewhat over 700,000, I hope that they try out different schedules for administering the second dose, since vaccine supply is limited, so it will take a long time to vaccinate the world as things stand.

 

Unless vaccine production is greatly increased, plus raw materials and equipment to administer the vaccines, we might have to start giving boosters before the first round in completed elsewhere.

[Albert Zweistein]

On 1/21/2021 at 12:15 AM, Don Chance said:

So is Thailand going to manufacture their own vaccines?  India is already way ahead.

They will start building the factory soon.......................

[shdmn]

7 hours ago, Albert Zweistein said:

They will start building the factory soon.......................

I think the factory already exists.  They just need to retool it for the AZ vaccine.

[Dialemco]

Thailand is a victim of its own success in controlling the first wave of the viras which has resulted in complacency as it did not anticipate the second wave which is now occurring and has delayed procurement of vaccines. 

[cdemundo]

On 1/20/2021 at 6:12 PM, Sydebolle said:

100+ years after detection of cancer, 40+ years after AIDS, 20+ years after SARS and Ebola - no vaccination whatsoever on the market.

Comes along a new virus of the Corona family and within 9 months, almost simultaneously, vaccines are on the market invented by America, Germany, Switzerland, Russia, China and most likely Japan?

 

Makes me wonder, what the hell is really going on …..

 

CHINA is buying 100 million doses of German-made vaccine for its local population. 

 

At the same time, it’s selling its “made-in-China” vaccine to mainly 3rd-World countries. If the Chinese don’t trust their own vaccine ........ go figure! 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-16/china-secures-100-million-doses-of-biontech-shot-to-boost-supply

 

SARS was eliminated by other means before vaccines could be fully developed.  Because symptoms developed rapidly there was less of a "healthy carrier/spreader" problem than with COVID 19.  Remembering the high profile of SARS it is interesting to note that worldwide 8098 people became ill with SARS and of these 774 died.  Infectious disease experts tend to call COVID 19 by the name "SARS-CoV-2" , because of its close relationships with the previous SARS virus.  SARS is also a Corona virus and some of the work on SARS vaccine was useful in COVID 19 vaccine development, and helped speed development of the vaccines.

 

The COVID 19 genetic sequence was made public by Chinese researchers in January 2020: from "Science" on January 11, 2020 "Chinese researchers reveal draft genome of virus implicated in Wuhan pneumonia outbreak".  This was the basis for developing an RNA vaccine that coded for the spike protein.  If I understand correctly, targeting production of a surface protein of the virus simplified vaccine production and allowed for rapid development.

 

Ebola: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the Ebola vaccine rVSV-ZEBOV (called Ervebo™) on December 19, 2019.  As you say it took a long time.

 

True, no vaccine for Cancer or HIV.  I think it is fair to say that some problems are more difficult to solve than others.

Learning something about the vaccine development process helps with understanding a little bit even though these are very complex questions which I can't pretend to understand fully.  I try to remind myself that "a little learning is a dangerous thing" and not to draw conclusions from what little I know.

 

 

[cdemundo]

On 1/22/2021 at 6:54 AM, Lingba said:

NOBODY knows yet the effects of these covid vaccines

I think you overstate your case.  Both mRNA vaccines have been through Stage III trials so a great deal is known about them.  If you are afraid of needles just don't get the vaccine.  Easy peasy.

[mtls2005]

On 1/25/2021 at 10:57 AM, shdmn said:

I think the factory already exists.  They just need to retool it for the AZ vaccine.

 

Siam Cement Group kicked in 100 million baht.

 

“The mission to manufacture Covid-19 vaccine is supported by the National Vaccine Institute, Public Health Ministry with a budget of almost Bt600 million, and an additional Bt100 million budget from Siam Cement Group in order to prepare the facilities for manufacturing AstraZeneca vaccine as soon as possible.” - The Nation/Asia News Network

 

 

Amazing how some things can be done very quickly here, without the obligatory 'committee'.

 

 

 

[oldhippy]

9 hours ago, mtls2005 said:

 

Siam Cement Group kicked in 100 million baht.

 

“The mission to manufacture Covid-19 vaccine is supported by the National Vaccine Institute, Public Health Ministry with a budget of almost Bt600 million, and an additional Bt100 million budget from Siam Cement Group in order to prepare the facilities for manufacturing AstraZeneca vaccine as soon as possible.” - The Nation/Asia News Network

 

 

Amazing how some things can be done very quickly here, without the obligatory 'committee'.

 

 

 

QUOTE: Amazing how some things can be done very quickly here, without the obligatory 'committee'.

 

Actually, with the latest news from Europe about Pfizer and Astrazenica, one could say that perhaps in Farangland there should have been many more 'committee'.

 

Both companies fail to deliver, and there are doubts about the efficacy of Astrazenica.