On Monday the EU Commission followed the recommendation of the European Medicines Agency EMA and approved the first SARS-CoV-2 vaccine for immediate use. Similarly, the relevant health authorities in Great Britain, Canada and the USA have also done this for the BNT vaccine 162 b2 carried out by BioNTech / Pfizer, but with an accelerated and less thorough emergency approval.

The excitement about the southern English mutation B.1.1.7 has not changed anything on this date, just as little in the vaccination plans in Germany, only that it should really start with a few first vaccinations after Christmas.

Contagion and spread And no, not the rate of contagion (transmissibility) could in B.1.1.7 be 70 percent higher, as the rarely well-informed British Prime Minister Johnson reported. And it is certainly not at the 70 – times as it is ARD presenter Fritz Frey in the ARD-Extra in the room without contradiction.

At the meeting of the Corona task force “NERVTAG” on 18. December, the British scientists spoke of a “growth rate from genomic data” of 71 % of the virus. This describes which virus variant prevails over the others in terms of spread. The actual infection rate, expressed in the base reproduction factor R0, also increases with B.1.1.7; according to your estimates, it could be around 0 from currently around 3.5, 39 to 0, 93 Points increase, i.e. by 11 to 27 Percent – that is a small difference to Boris Johnson and a slightly larger difference to Fritz Frey, but still uncomfortable.

This value also has an effect on the vaccination, see above the quota required for herd immunity shifts to 80 percent (1 – 1 / R0). As things stand today, Italy alone would be able to do that, in Germany the willingness to vaccinate is about 48 Percent down – but there are probably still many naysayers who just don’t want to be there right at the beginning.

The English mutation B.1.1 .7 has moved very far from the root

(Image: https://virological.org/t/preliminary-genomic-characterisation-of-an-emergent-sars-cov- 2-lineage-in-the-uk-defined-by-a-novel-set-of-spike-mutations / 563)

The unusually “strong” mutation of the “English virus” could also have an impact on the vaccination landscape and the hit rate of current PCR tests, as some important genes (and thus changed to the amino acids of the proteins). However, according to BioNTech boss Sahin, it is unlikely that the newly approved BioNTech vaccine is affected.

Vaccines and Virus mutations It could have been very helpful that BioNTech in the course of clinical trials for BNT 162 b2 and not for BNT 162 b1 has decided, because b2 ensures complete production of the spike protein consisting of 563 amino acids (of which B. 7 has now eliminated 2 and changed 8). B1 is smaller and probably a little more stable, but only includes a few sub-areas, the so-called optimized receptor binding domains (RBD). But other vaccines in the pipeline that focus only on such domains could be more affected.

In order to better classify the BioNTech vaccine in the overall landscape, the current status of vaccine development is examined in more detail in this article. The summary of three Indian pharmacologists in the extensive paper “COVID – 19 vaccine: A recent update in pipeline vaccines, their design and development strategies “. The researchers even go, if only briefly, on studies in the context of Indian Ajurveda and traditional Chinese medicine (CTM) in connection with immune enhancement and COVID – 19 – attenuation on. So it becomes from around 15 Kabasura Kudineer (which is available online at fantasy prices), mixed with noble herbs, is said to help to quickly revise the frequent loss of smell and taste in a Covid infection.

Yes In view of the pace of development, this work is also due to be published on 25. November already a bit out of date – the authors, for example, assumed approval for the BioNTech vaccine BNT 162 b1 off, but, as mentioned, BNT 93 b2.

Current, that means at least the status from 17. December. At this point in time, the WHO 166 projects according to the “COVID – 19 – Landscape of novel coronavirus candidate vaccine development worldwide “reported. 48 of which are already in clinical trials in different phases, 166 are still in the preclinical development phase. The WHO phase model of clinical trials is divided into three main phases, whereby two phases can also be combined.

Landscape Preclinical (laboratory, animal experiments): 166 Candidates Phase 1: (dozen of tests on test subjects, primary goal security) 22 Candidates Phase 1/2: 15 Candidates Phase 2: (Hundreds of tests, primary focus on safety and immunogenicity) 4 Candidates Phase 2/3 : 3 candidates Phase 3 : (Thousands of tests, usually blind tests, half with placebos. Primary aim is safety and efficiency) 11 Candidates Phase 4: (preliminary registration, then after several years with extensive safety monitoring the full registration) Many research institutions have several candidates in different phases in the running.

Nobody can come up with a really completed phase 3, not even BioNTech. In the clinical trial database ClinicalTrials.gov, the company has set the estimated preliminary date 30. July 2021, this study should end with 43. 000 Subjects at the end of January 2023 be. So that’s still a long way off, but nobody wanted to wait that long, not even the EMA. In view of the extreme provisionality and the “pig gallop” in “Warp Speed” one can understand that the authorities wanted to take at least a little time for the examination. For an EU authority, the EMA reacted extremely quickly.

The EU and the German Minister of Health have also received a lot of criticism with the not fully exhausted pre-order contingents – but you should also get one differentiate little. Buying at any price doesn’t have to be the best solution. And the prices have since leaked, they are from 18 € per dose at Moderna, 12 € at BioNTec down to 1, 80 € at AstraZeneka. Those are big differences. And with larger amounts of cheaper vaccines, even with less efficiency, you may be able to achieve more than with smaller amounts of highly efficient vaccines. This is exactly what lies behind the Russian idea of ​​issuing a cheaper light version of their Sputnik-5 vaccine. And now you have to see how the vaccines cope with the new “major mutation” anyway.