Marina Artusa
04/05/2021 18:16
Clarín.com
World
Updated 04/05/2021 18:16
The vaccine is immunizing the world population against the coronavirus at different speeds and Spain is considering more than one way to achieve it:
Puncture or inhalation?
The Spanish Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) -the equivalent of our Conicet- is working on the development of a vaccine that, instead of being an intramuscular injection,
is nasal.
According to Luis Enjuanes, the researcher at the National Center for Biotechnology at the head of the team that is designing this intranasal vaccine, it would be effective with a single dose and
could be ready for the first quarter of next year.
The nasal vaccine aims to provide greater protection in the respiratory tract, the main entry point for the virus.
The intramuscular vaccine, in Miami, United States.
AP Photo
“Drug safety agencies prefer intramuscular, which has been used more and is safe.
However, it is not the most appropriate because it induces a general immunity in the whole organism, systemic, and less strong in the mucous membranes -states the virologist on the CSIC website, which depends on the Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain-.
The mucous membranes (nasal, ocular, respiratory, etc.)
are spaces open to the outside and immunity in these areas is better induced locally
, presenting the antigen (the substance that elicits the immune response, that is, the vaccine) there.
This virus enters our body primarily through the respiratory tract, therefore, if you administer the vaccine intranasally, you immunize that area and the protection is greater. "
Certainties
"We will come out later, but with everything updated,"
says Enjuanes about the trials that they will carry out and that will include mutations of the Sars-Cov-2 variants from the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil.
“Ours is an original vaccine
, none of this type has been made.
It is based on the genetic manipulation of the virus itself, says the 76-year-old virologist.
We have taken a collection of genes from the virus genome.
As a result, it is no longer a virus because it cannot spread and infect people or animals.
That gives us the assurance that it will not revert to a virulent entity ”.
While DNA is what contains genetic information, RNA is what allows these data to be understood by cells.
In this vaccine, the dose of RNA that is applied, according to Enjuanes,
can be multiplied by 5,000 within the body
while it can generate a sterilizing immunity, that is, it prevents not only the disease, but also infection and contagion.
Doubts
“The idea is very good.
The problem is that immunity in the mucosa lasts less time
than systemic immunity, that of the whole body, ”
Spanish virologist Estanislao Nistal Villán
told
Clarín
.
“In the United States there is experience with inhaled vaccines.
It is a flu vaccine that in Europe is recommended for young children but, perhaps due to ignorance, it is not used much ”, adds Nistal Villán, who teaches Microbiology at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the CEU San Pablo University in Madrid.
“It is a flu vaccine based on an attenuated virus, which contains a virus that is capable of replicating at low temperatures.
It is based on the fact that, in our upper respiratory tract,
the temperature is lower
and that allows the virus to replicate at that temperature ”, explains virologist Nistal Villán.
“But when the virus goes down into the lung and the body temperature rises, the virus does not replicate.
That specificity that induces is a local immunity, an immunization in the mucosa and the production of antibodies in the mucosa is what would prevent the virus from entering the body
but it would be of shorter duration
", says Nistal Villán, who has his own outreach program -
Deciphering the virus
- which can be followed online or in podcast format: every two weeks and conducted by journalists from the online newspaper
El Confidencial who
specialize in scientific issues, Nistal Villán debates with colleagues about the universe of viruses.
Madrid. Correspondent
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