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Book Recommendation – The Great Influenza
It is time for my next recommendation for a book! The great influenza is a beautiful narrative of the pandemic of 1918 and many lives that it affected. John Berry masterfully describes the characters of physicians and scientists who dedicated their lives to the pursuit of discovery and cure of the influenza virus. It is…
Appropriate Animal Models for the COVID-19 Vaccine
What are the Appropriate animal models for the COVID-19 vaccine? In order to study a vaccine, you have to have an animal model of the disease. Many animals do not get infected with COVID-19 and do not suffer any disease so it would be useless to study them. There are a few models available: Mice…
Vaccines: CanSino (A Branch of Sinovac) in Beijing
Having a plan in place during the COVID-19 crisis will ease your mind and, in case you become ill yourself, ensure that your loved one is cared for. Here are some ideas to consider.
More About Moderna Vaccine Trial
Phase I trial mostly uneventful. What is next ? Phase II trial How many volunteers? 600 What does it entail? Actual efficacy of the vaccine and whether the volunteers make neutralizing antibodies. (Phase I was only 8 patients studied) What are neutralizing antibodies? Antibodies that bind the virus in such…
Moderna Vaccine Trials
The Moderna Company which got some publicity in the news never actually published their data in the medical literature but did a press release. What did they test? Low, intermediate and…
COVID-19 Vaccines (Current Candidates)
There are currently 159 candidates for the vaccines, 11 of which have already conducted the human trials and 8 have been approved to move forward with further human testing. Moderna – RNA CanSino Biologics – Adenovirus type 5 Inovio – DNA BioNTech, Pfizer – RNA University of Oxford/ Astrazeneca – Chimp Adenovirus Novavax – Virus…
VACCINES – Part 1 – Approaches (Platforms) for Development of a COVID-19 Vaccine
To understand the process behind vaccine development, you have to go back to my section on immunology and recall how the body fends off a microbe. Recall that the first line of defense against a foreign entity like a virus is the innate immunity which tries to create a barrier against entry followed by a non-discriminate…
VACCINES
In this series which will probably be about 10 parts I am going to talk about vaccines. There is much to know about development of a vaccine and I am going to try to break it down. As in my other posts you have to read these in sequence to get the most out of…
The Influence of Temperature and UV Light on SARS-Cov-2
A study in Lancet looked at viability of the virus at 4 degrees celsius (which is the refrigerator temperature), at room temperature and at human body temperature. In liquid SARS-Cov 2 is stable at 4 degrees Celsius , that is in the refrigerator for over a week. Therefore any item that is contaminated with…
SARS-COV-2’s Viability on Surfaces
How long does SARS-Cov-2 survive on surfaces? A study published in New England Journal of Medicine looked at the viability of the virus on surfaces. The reduction of number of surfaces are measured in log numbers. Therefore we look at 10 fold reduction of viral agents. Say for example you have 100,000 viruses, then we…
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