Q. How does our body fight a virus ?
A. By producing antibodies against it.
The rules of immunology state that in order to develop adequate and accurate antibodies against any infection, you must suffer the full infection at least once. Otherwise the antibodies will be inadequate and ineffective. We usually develop good quality antibodies after every viral infection.
Consider the example of the plasma therapy in Covid19. The able bodied, youthful Covid survivors develop adequate antibodies after 2-3 weeks of infection. Their plasma even can cure a weak and aged covid victim with many underlying diseases.
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But this SARS CoV-2 is a virus with difference.
- The antibody production following a Covid infection is unpredictable. The quantity of antibodies differ from one person to other. It is found to die down within 6 months.
- Till date, we have not found a sure shot drug against the virus. That means we can not wait till 60% of the world human population to get infected before herd immunity can develop. That will be way too costly.
- It was observed that US has to sacrifice 220,000 people to develop only 6% immunity. That is a very high casualty. You can not risk so many lives to develop adequate herd immunity in the natural way.
- We are not able to grow the virus in lab till date and tweak its virulence so that we can directly use the live virus as a vaccine.
( Any live virus vaccine runs the risk of the vaccine viruses turning rogue and running amok. Credit goes to Hillary Kaprowski who created the world’s first live attenuated Polio virus and experimented it on himself. Sabin used this virus line to develop Live Oral Polio Vaccine. Today we are Polio free thanks to the supreme courage of Kaprowski)
- Neither do we have a full proof drug against the virus. Only such a drug can empower us to take risk and infect all humans with the live virus vaccine. In summary, it is too risky to inject live Corona Virus to healthy people today.
So what is the next alternative ?
Here steps in the mRNA vaccine.
The mRNA Vaccine:
If we can’t afford to inject the live virus, our next best alternative is to inject the mRNA.
We know that Corona Virus sticks to our cell by its spikes before gaining entry into us. Spike is a protein antigen. So we have designed a mRNA that can code exactly for the spike protein.
What is mRNA ?
( Please visit my blog for details of mRNA)
https://drramakanta.com/2020/11/11/how-does-our-body-make-our-insulin/
how we humans manufacture the 22,000 protein we need for our day to day activities ?
Once the code for Corona spikes are available to our cells, our ribosomes start printing our own spikes inside our cells. This is a new protein. And our body immediately start producing killer antibodies against those self manufactured spike proteins.
When the real virus comes knocking at our door with its original spikes, our body is already prepared with adequate antibodies. The original virus is refused entry.
Thus our body can produce enough antibodies even without facing a single viral antigen.
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What are the risks ?
- The Pfizer mRNA vaccine needs to be preserved at -70° C before injection. That is a tall requirement.
- Scientists are not sure how often we shall need vaccination. The influenza vaccine is an annual item.
- As per intial assessment, this vaccine may have to be given twice in a year. That counts to an enormous number of doses.
- As with all new vaccines, it takes time to document all the side effects. But the idea that mRNA can do irreversible genetic modification is baseless. Any gene therapy will have this inherent risk.
The manufacturers claim that the new vaccine is 90% effective ?? Is it true ?
It is too early to establish such claims.
In my opinion, the PR people of the manufacturer are a bit too optimistic.
Flu vaccines are only 60-70% effective.
Only time can testify such a tall claim.
( My personal feeling.)
Dr Ramakanta's Ideas 