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COVID-19: New hope rides on protein-based vaccines being developed in many countries. Here's How They Work.
DW ^ | December 2021 | Alexander Freund

Posted on 01/06/2022 3:31:48 PM PST by SeekAndFind

The European Medicines Agency has approved the Novavax coronavirus vaccine. The protein-based vaccine may be a real alternative, both for bringing forward the global vaccination campaign, and for vaccination skeptics.

Many people who refuse to get vaccinated against COVID-19 say they don't trust the technology behind mRNA vaccines, such as in BioNTech-Pfizer and Moderna shots. They say they also don't trust vector-based vaccines, like the Oxford-AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson jabs.

Many say they are instead waiting for protein-based vaccines, which have proven themselves over years as providing safe protection, for example against Hepatitis, influenza, tetanus and whooping cough.

Now, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has approved the first protein-based vaccine, produced by American company Novavax, against SARS-CoV-2.

Protein-based vaccines appear to offer a good level of protection against COVID-19 and produce fewer side effects than those existing and approved mRNA and vector-based vaccines.

Experts say protein-based vaccines are urgently needed for the global vaccination program against COVID-19. They point out that while many richer nations are getting busy boosting their populations with a third jab, many people in poorer nations have yet to get receive a first dose.

Researchers say protein-based vaccines could help people in poorer nations get vaccinated. Protein-based vaccines are cheaper to produce than mRNA vaccines and they can be stored at temperatures of 2 to 8 degrees Celsius (36 to 46 degrees Fahrenheit), which makes them easier to transport. So, it would be practical to deploy them in the so-called Global South.

It's taken somewhat longer to develop protein-based coronavirus vaccines. It wasn't until November 2021 that the United States pharmaceutical firm Novavax submitted its approval application to EMA. It's also expected that the US will approve the vaccine for use there by the end of the year.

Indonesia gave the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine emergency approval at the start of November. Submissions for approval are ongoing in the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.

Novavax may well be ahead in the approval stakes. But other vaccine developers, such as India's Biological E and China's Clover Biopharmaceuticals, are expected to submit their own protein-based candidate vaccines for approval as well.

Then there's also the British-French company, Sanofi-GlaxoSmithKline, a Canadian firm called Medicago and a South Korean one called sk bioscience. Each one continues to progress with their development of protein-based vaccines.

One key point is how protein-based vaccines are produced in many more countries. In some, such as Cuba, Russia and Taiwan, protein-based vaccines are a standard in national vaccine campaigns.

How do protein-based vaccines differ?

Protein-based vaccines include a miniscule, look-alike version of the COVID-19 spike protein.

The immune system reacts to the protein in the vaccine, and it does so a lot faster because — contrary to other vaccines — it doesn't have to produce the protein itself. The protein is delivered in the vaccine.

Novavax does not contain any killed coronavirus. Instead, the developers used a recombinant nanotechnology to generate the tiniest particles that resemble the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein.

Using insect cells, the developers created a nanoparticle that the body's immune system recognizes as the virus ("a virus-like particle") — although it is not the virus — and then reacts accordingly.

Those nanoparticles do not carry any DNA of the virus and therefore produce fewer side effects in the human body. However, the human immune response is weaker.

Stronger effect with adjuvants

To strengthen the immune response, the developers add so-called adjuvants to these vaccines. In the case of the Novavax vaccine, the adjuvant is saponin (extracted from Quillaja saponaria or the soap bark tree), along with cholesterol and phospholipids.

Some vaccine critics say some adjuvants, such aluminum salt, are harmful.

But meta-studies have so far failed to find any links between such adjuvants and serious side effects or allergies.

Long development

Before mRNA vaccines got their long-awaited break in the COVID-19 pandemic, protein-based vaccines were considered a future-oriented, tried and tested technology.

"Protein-based vaccines are just very well-known, people's bodies tend to tolerate them better [than other vaccines], and there are no big questions left to answer," said Guzman.

"But one disadvantage is that it takes longer to develop protein-based vaccines than mRNA or vector-based vaccines."

That's the view of Carlos Guzman, director of the department of Vaccinology and Applied Microbiology at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, and a professor at the Hannover Medical School.

How effective are protein-based vaccines?

It may take longer to develop them, but protein-based vaccines are cheaper to make, easier to transport and effective as well.

Novavax has said its vaccine is 90.4% effective. That puts it in the same league as the mRNA vaccines from BioNTech-Pfizer and Moderna.

That efficacy rate was taken from studies in mid-2021 in the US and Mexico.

A British study, meanwhile, conducted when the alpha variant of the coronavirus that was dominant in the UK, showed the Novavax vaccine to have efficacy of 83%.

But in a study conducted around the same time in South Africa, where the beta variant was dominant, the Novavax vaccine scored an efficacy of just 50%.

If newer variants, such as delta and omicron, keep showing themselves to be ever more transmissible, then it's possible all vaccines will see a drop in their efficacy — that is, the protection they offer people.

This is why we all need booster jabs. But at the same time, poorer nations may not be forgotten, as the risk of new virus variants developing and the pandemic continuing indefinitely can only be stemmed when people around the globe can get vaccinated.

Bringing global vaccination forward

Next to existing COVID-19 vaccines, many millions of doses of which have been pledged to poorer nations through the COVAX program, protein-based vaccines will no doubt be used there as well — once they are approved.

Novavax has pledged a billion doses through COVAX.

The company says it could produce 100 million doses — possibly even 150 million doses — per month.

Its chief executive, Stanley Erck, has said that many of the first doses the company produces will go to poorer nations. That was always their goal, he said.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: chinavirusvaccine; covid; novavax; proteinbased; vaccines; vaxxx
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1 posted on 01/06/2022 3:31:48 PM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

Confirmation tests completed on dead babys for your protection.


2 posted on 01/06/2022 3:37:00 PM PST by Delta 21 (It started as a virus, and mutated into an IQ test.)
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To: SeekAndFind

I’ll keep my natural immunity and never get tested.


3 posted on 01/06/2022 3:37:14 PM PST by maddog55 (The only thing systemic in America is the left's hatred of it!)
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To: maddog55

Same here.


4 posted on 01/06/2022 3:39:25 PM PST by laplata
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To: SeekAndFind

An injection of pure spike proteins which accumulate throughout your body, sticking to vital organs, which your immune system will later target mistaking them for pathogens.

If Novavax was safe and effective - they’d never let us have it.


5 posted on 01/06/2022 3:46:19 PM PST by ransomnote (IN GOD WE TRUST)
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To: SeekAndFind

Well, good luck to anyone taking them, they enjoy taking far more risks with their life than I do.


6 posted on 01/06/2022 3:46:19 PM PST by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: SeekAndFind

When will the ChiComs (including Traitorfauci) be held to account for their bioterrorism attack on the World?


7 posted on 01/06/2022 3:49:10 PM PST by Carl Vehse (A proud member of the LGBFJB community)
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To: SeekAndFind

“COVID-19: New hope rides on protein-based vaccines being developed in many countries.”

riiiight ... the protein in “protein-based” vaxes is the deadly spike protein ... but that alone isn’t enough to make these vaxes work: an adjuvant is also needed to force the immune system into hyperactivity ... nasty chemicals, those adjuvants, chemicals like alum, squaline, and proprietary ones like Matrix-M, all injected directly into your bloodstream ... just the thing for those who already have multiple autoimmune diseases or are genetically prone to them ...


8 posted on 01/06/2022 3:51:10 PM PST by catnipman (Cat Nipman: Vote Republican in 2012 and only be called racist one more time!)
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To: SeekAndFind

**Novavax has said its vaccine is 90.4% effective. That puts it in the same league as the mRNA vaccines from BioNTech-Pfizer and Moderna.**

Oh,.... well then that settles it, it’s as defective as those others.


9 posted on 01/06/2022 3:51:40 PM PST by Zuriel (Acts 2:38,39....Do you believe it?)
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To: maddog55

Seriously? Seriously? They forget “once bitten, twice shy!” They can shove this one next to the other ones I never took.


10 posted on 01/06/2022 3:52:25 PM PST by Equine1952
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To: SeekAndFind

Given the spike is the thing that seems to be causing all the problems, it sounds like a great idea. Infuse the spike directly. Genius. I will rush out and let them inject a gallon, maybe two. < /s >

(earlier today a loon contingent on here were convinced the vaxes contain self assembling nano octopuses or is it octopi or octopodes that will control your brain through 5G. I have never been so ashamed of fellow Freepers...)


But as the Octopus grew and multiplied, it became necessary to speak of him in the plural; and here a whole host of difficulties arose. Some daring spirits with little Latin and less Greek, rushed upon octopi; as for octopuses, a man would as soon think of swallowing one of the animals thus described as pronounce such a word at a respectable tea-table. In this condition of affairs, we are glad to know that a few resolute people have begun to talk about Octopods, which is, of course, the nearest English approach to the proper plural.

— The Bradford Observer (West Yorkshire, Eng.), 7 Nov. 1873


11 posted on 01/06/2022 3:55:17 PM PST by LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget
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To: ransomnote

Plus them vaccines are all full of little microscopic bionic sea monkeys that give you AIDS, make you blind and cause you
to become magnetic whether you like it or not.

Why, them sea monkeys are straight from the DEVIL!


12 posted on 01/06/2022 3:55:25 PM PST by humblegunner (Ain't drownin', Just wavin'...)
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To: maddog55

That’s my plan, too


13 posted on 01/06/2022 3:57:12 PM PST by goodnesswins (....pervert Biden & O Cabal are destroying America, as planned.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Why not just use Ivermectin, Vitamin D, Zinc???

Ready available. Cheap, extremely safe !!!


14 posted on 01/06/2022 3:57:16 PM PST by TNoldman (AN AMERICAN FOR A MUSLIM/BHO FREE AMERICA. (Owner of Stars and Bars Flags))
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To: laplata
Ditto. My natural immunity has been working just fine - through a couple dozen confirmed exposures, even to the dreaded "delta variant."

I'm good, keep your shots.

15 posted on 01/06/2022 3:57:59 PM PST by ThunderSleeps (Biden/Harris - illegitimate and everyone knows it.)
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To: TNoldman

Where is Ivermectin “ready available”?

If love to get some to have on hand.


16 posted on 01/06/2022 3:59:06 PM PST by MayflowerMadam (When government fears the people, there is liberty.)
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To: TNoldman

RE: Why not just use Ivermectin, Vitamin D, Zinc???

Because the powers that be won’t let you live your life normally without being vaccinated regardless of whether the science supports their opposition


17 posted on 01/06/2022 4:04:12 PM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

Just remove the legal liability protections from harm caused by adverse side effects from the vaccine companies. This will do the most to make sure the vaccines are safe and effective.


18 posted on 01/06/2022 4:04:55 PM PST by Frohickey
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To: TNoldman

RE: Ready available. Cheap, extremely safe !!!

NOT readily available in the USA
NOT cheap in the USA.
Safe, yes.


19 posted on 01/06/2022 4:05:28 PM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: TNoldman

>>Why not just use Ivermectin, Vitamin D, Zinc?
Ready available. Cheap, extremely safe<<

Thank heavens for Hydroxychloroquine, Ivermectin, zinc, D3, C along with some left-over prednisone and an Albuterol inhaler.

The wife and I are still pure bloods. lol


20 posted on 01/06/2022 4:06:41 PM PST by servantboy777
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