A study conducted by the Duke-NUS Medical School has shown that inactivated virus vaccines such as Sinopharm and Sinovac may also work in preventing severe Covid.
This suggests that a combination of this type of vaccine with mRNA vaccines may work better than using only one type.Sinovac and Sinopharm have been considered by some to not be as effective as mRNA vaccines since they induce a lower antibody response. However, the new study shows that Sinopharm and Sinovac trigger different T-cell responses in fighting Covid, The Straits Times reported on Monday (Nov 14).
With mRNA vaccines, a part of the coronavirus’ genetic code is injected into a person’s body. This activates the production of viral proteins, but not the whole virus, in order to train the immune system to attack.
On the other hand,
Sinovac and Sinopharm, which are examples of inactivated vaccines, use dead viral particles in order to expose immune systems to the virus without the risk of serious disease.mRNA vaccines, such as the ones from Pfizer and Moderna, induce T-cells, which target the coronavirus’ spike protein.
But
inactivated vaccines cause a broader immune response against various proteins of the coronavirus.Therefore, says Anthony Tanoto Tan, a senior research fellow with the Duke-NUS’ Emerging Infectious Diseases programme,
vaccines such as Sinovac and Sinopharm may not be as effective in preventing infection, but they may be key in preventing serious diseases from developing. Dr Tan is the study’s senior co-author.
mRNA vaccines were shown to produce more antibodies compared to inactivated vaccines. But with new variants that successfully evade the antibody response, “This means that maybe we should stop thinking about preventing infection, and we should start thinking about (how) vaccines (can prevent) severe disease,” ST quotes Dr Tan as saying.
The above is reported in theindependent.sg. I have highlighted some points in bold for discussion. The first two sentence suggested that because inactivated virus vaccines can prevent severe Covid therefore combining it with mRNA vaccine would work better. I can't find the correlation why adding mRNA vaccine would make it better. How did he come to this finding? Also, would mRNA vaccine destroy the user's natural immune system? Personally I am very happy with Sinopharm and has yet to be infected. I would never touch mRNA vaccines after reading so many adverse reports and the high risk of destroying a person's own immune system. Thank you very much mRNA.
The second point is that inactivated virus vaccines treat the virus as a whole while mRNA vaccines only deal with the spike proteins. This in simple term is that inactivated virus vaccines will deal with all the different types of virus regardless of the number of spike proteins. This is more generic. In the case of mRNA vaccines, it is like dealing only with the spike proteins and not the virus, and dealing with each spike protein separately. So every spike protein that is different would render it useless. That speaks for the need for ever growing number of types of mRNA vaccines as the virus mutates all time to produce new spike proteins. In other words, the mRNA vaccine is obsolete every time a new mutation is discovered. Damn good for the pharmaceutical companies to make more and more new mRNA vaccines and more money.
mRNA vaccines produce more antibodies. This is expected as the messenger will make the body produce more and more spike proteins and the body responded by producing more and more antibodies. In the inactivated virus vaccines, the number of dead virus is finite and the body just need to produce a finite number of antibodies to get rid of the inactivated virus. Nothing more, nothing less. So, does the production of more antibodies means more effective? Don't really think so in these cases.
Next point, new variants would evade the antibody response. Of course, as the body was made to respond only to the specific spike protein and not new variant spike protein. This failure in mRNA vaccines in preventing infection should not simply be wished away and say better to think about how it can prevent severe disease. This is not tackling the purpose of the vaccine. A vaccine is to prevent infection. If it cannot prevent infection, it is not a vaccine. It cannot be labelled as vaccine. Period.
After all the hooha, I still think inactivated virus vaccines that treat the virus as a whole are a much better choice.
What do you think?
PS. Silly Australia and Japan are still using the ineffective mRNA vaccines and as expected, the infection rate is still exploding. Australia now has more than 100,000 daily cases, Japan more than 50,000 cases with South Korea closely behind. Why are these stupid govts trying to prove to stubbornly injecting their people with an ineffective vaccine that has been reported to have many adverse reactions including DNA alteration and destruction of natural immune system?