New findings from an Australian research team surrounding a coronavirus vaccine

The novel coronavirus vaccine, how will it go?

Until now, a vaccine to prevent the novel coronavirus or 2019-nCoV has not been found. However, with the number of cases now over 40,000 and claiming more than 900 lives, scientists around the world are working to accelerate the development of vaccine manufacturing.

One of the countries that has progressed quite rapidly is Australia. As reported by the University of Sydney website, a team of researchers from New South Wales has succeeded in growing the virus from sufferers of 2019-nCoV.

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The growth of this virus is done as an effort to understand the diagnosis and how to prevent transmission.

The team of 10 scientists and pathologists and doctors from the University of Sydney has been working around the clock to develop replicas of the virus. In the study, they isolated the live virus from a 43-year-old patient at Westmead Hospital.

This virus isolation aims to provide proper tests and help develop vaccines.

Thus, the process of making the novel coronavirus vaccine may be sped up to take a few months. In addition, the findings are also expected to help researchers understand why the virus can develop severe lung disease.

Therefore, let's hope that researchers can find a vaccine to prevent coronavirus so that this outbreak can be stopped.

Vaccine manufacturing process

After knowing the development of vaccines against the novel coronavirus, maybe some of you want to know how the vaccine is made.

Vaccines can be made in various ways, from weakening the virus, using some bacteria, to inactivating the virus. The following are several types of vaccine making that are commonly carried out by the research team, including the novel coronavirus.

1. Weakens the virus

One of the vaccine-making processes that might also occur in the novel coronavirus vaccine candidate is to weaken the virus.

Generally, in this process the viruses will be weakened, so that they do not reproduce properly in the body. Typically, this process is used in vaccines for measles, rubella, influenza, and chickenpox.

This is because viruses normally do not cause disease by reproducing themselves in the human body. On the other hand, a natural virus will multiply in number thousands of times when an infection occurs.

The vaccine virus cannot reproduce in a short time, but only less than 20 times. However, this virus duplicates its cells properly to induce cells that protect the body from infection at a later date.

That way, the virus can become weak and not multiply in a short time when the vaccine virus is “inserted”.

The advantage of this method is that one or two doses offer lifelong immunity to the virus. However, vaccines that weaken this virus usually cannot be given to people with weakened immune systems, such as people with cancer or AIDS.

2. Turn off the virus

In addition to weakening the virus, making a vaccine that may also occur in the novel coronavirus is to completely kill the virus.

The use of this method is usually done with certain chemical compounds so that the virus cannot reproduce itself or spread infectious diseases.

Polio, hepatitis A, influenza (shot), and rabies vaccines are made with this method because the virus is still "visible" to the body, so your immune system is helping it.

The benefit of making a vaccine by killing this virus is that it does not cause side effects and can be given to people with weak immune systems. However, researchers still need to look at how many safe doses each individual needs to achieve immunity against viral infection.

3. Using part of the coronavirus virus

Did you know that in the process of making the novel coronavirus vaccine, researchers use parts of the virus to understand the diagnosis?

One method of making this vaccine takes one to several parts of the virus for use as a vaccine. Normally, this method is used in the manufacture of vaccines for hepatitis B, HPV, and shingles.

This vaccine, which consists of proteins and is on the surface of the virus, is quite effective for protection against certain diseases.

4. Using certain types of bacteria

Not only using part of the virus, the manufacture of vaccines can also use one or several parts of certain types of bacteria. This method of making a vaccine may be effective for the novel coronavirus, but further research is needed to ensure this.

Certain types of bacteria can cause disease by creating harmful proteins, namely toxins. Vaccines can be made by taking poisons and killing them with certain chemical compounds.

If this happens, of course the virus can no longer cause disease. The types of vaccines made in this way are the diphtheria and tetanus vaccines.

In addition, vaccines can also be made from a layer of bacteria or polysaccharides. This icing is used as protection against infection, but this method is not effective enough in children.

This is because children cannot make a good immune response to the bacterial sugar coating, but they also need a harmless protein. This vaccine with a layer of sugar and bacterial protein is commonly used in HiB (influenza type B) and pneumococcal vaccines.

The process of making vaccines, especially the novel coronavirus, is very complicated and takes a long time. However, it is possible that the findings of this Australian research team can shorten the process of making vaccines.