Our Covid vaccine includes key variants

Louis Anguanese He prefers not to specify the dates, because “in science, one expects one thing and then it takes another two months,” but they are already in a position to, “within weeks, run experiments on an animal model of mice,” which will last about three months.

Then we’ll have to do tests on macaques, for another three months, and then we can move on to the three phases of clinical trials in humans.

“If all goes well,” the director of the Coronavirus Laboratory, CNB-CSIC, told Efe, “It is likely that the first results of all stages will appear at the beginning of next year,” but you ask, we answer and then the delays come. .

The virologist explains that there were two technical phases that were already bypassed to increase production performance and that they were delayed by “four or five months”.

But it also allowed them to “cater to the whims” of Britain, South Africa and Brazil. However, India did not take this into account, because “there is a time when you have to stop developing a vaccine, and you cannot combine them all and make a different vaccine every week.”

mouthwash This week he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in the United States, in recognition of his career, an appointment he considers “a very big honor” as well as a “surprise.”

Founded in 1863, the NAS advises the US government on matters of science and technology, and your election is a “very great privilege,” says the virologist, who is also remembered as a member of the Spanish Academy of Microphysics. Science. and Naturales de España and the American Academy of Microbiology.

The researcher has been working with viruses for 40 years, 36 of which are infected with the Coronavirus. “It has been the subject of my entire life.”

He is one of the great global experts and points out that SARS-Cov-2 is causing more problems than expected.

Initially, “We made statements, and I was the first, based on our experience” with other coronaviruses such as SARS-1 (2001) or MERS (2012) and “some of these predictions were later found to be incorrect” for example, it was believed that the current virus It will fade over time.

“Unfortunately, as much as I consult my distinguished colleagues who are in very important hospitals in Spain if they see signs of attenuation, they always tell me: Louis, not yet.”

This new virus explains a chain of four amino acids that have been incorporated into the spike protein – which allows it to enter cells – which means that it can infect any organ in the body, not just the respiratory and respiratory systems. Intestinal.

“For this reason, it causes more than 50 different types of disease, which frankly makes it extremely dangerous,” he confirms; He adds that although patients recover after injury, there is a relatively high proportion of those who remain sequelae, which can affect, among other things, the nervous, respiratory or circulatory system.

Charging …