Details of the promising vaccine that may work against all variants of COVID 19

A promising vaccine against COVID 19 developed by the Mexican Autonomous University of Queretaro It could be applied from 2022 to deal with the pandemic in Mexico, which already has more than 2.1 million infections and nearly 200,000 deaths.

Almost a million dollars separate the vaccine project QUIVAX 17.4 move on to the human testing phase and, if all goes as planned, it will be in mid-2022 when it will already be applied to the population.

The project has had promising results after animal testing and also It has been very effective against the different variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that have emerged.

The rector of the Autonomous University of Querétaro, Dr Teresa García Gasca, explained this Saturday to Efe that the “protein” of the vaccine is composed of “six small peptides which are taken from the spike model”.

Once the “sequence analysis” was performed, they identified that the peptides correspond to the different variants of the coronavirus in almost identical ways.

“Only one has a small change in a single amino acid. So that makes us think, we hypothesized, that our vaccine might protect against other variants,” explained the doctor.

The vaccine developed in Querétaro This is not the only one made in MexicoAlthough resources are limited compared to other countries and pharmaceutical companies, the Biomedical Research Institute (IIBm) of UNAM and Michoacan University of San Nicolás de Hidalgo are also making progress in their research.

The country has more than 2.1 million infections and 193,851 deaths from the coronavirus, being the third country in the world in number of deaths.

In addition, it has applied 4,005,131 million doses of vaccines to date, which have been injected mainly to medical personnel and people over 60 years of age.

Animal success

While waiting to continue the human test phase, animal testing has been under observation for months with good resultsUnderlined Garcia Gasca.

“The animals have already been inoculated for several months: more than 150 days ago. We have very good results in terms of the efficacy of the vaccine, it generates a very good level of antibodies,” he stressed.

So far, species such as goats, sheep, rabbits and pigs without significant side effects.

“In terms of safety: no side effects that could worry us have been observed. Maybe a little bit of temperature the first two days … and a little swelling but nothing that could worry us,” he added. .

Laboratory tests indicate a very effective response.

As Dr Juan Joel Mosqueda, head of the investigation, explains, “the advantage of this protein is that it is optimized so that we only take the parts of the virus that the immune system recognizes”.

“In such a way that we hypothesize that when used as a vaccine, it will generate an efficient and more specific response against the virus,” he added.

Donations and support

Government authorities and the private sector have already made several donations of cash and equipment.

As García Gasca explains, Mexico’s Ministry of External Relations (SRE) contributed seed capital of 3.3 million pesos (around $ 160,000), while the university itself has set up around 2 million pesos (around $ 100,000) and also received support. of private initiative.

But the scientific progress of the team from the Autonomous University of Querétaro now comes up against the obstacle of funding.

20 million pesos (nearly a million dollars) are missing to take the next step.

“This will allow us to complete the preclinical phases: the preclinical experiments that we lack in rodents, to carry out everything necessary with regard to the regulatory requirements requested by Cofepris (Federal Commission for the Protection against Sanitary Risks) and to carry out phases I and II in humans, ”he remarked.

Although there is still a long way to go, the possibility is envisaged that by mid-2022 this Mexican vaccine against COVID 19 will already be applied to the population.

“Next year we would be successful in having our vaccine for human application. Maybe in the middle of the year “underlined the expert.

To raise funds, the university will celebrate a “vaccination” on March 27 with an arts program in the streets of the city to raise nearly a million dollars.