Coronavirus Vaccine: Some scientists are making a DIY COVID vaccine and injecting themselves!

It has been seven months ever since the novel coronavirus first erupted in Wuhan, China and the world hasn’t been the same ever since. As the coronavirus pandemic continues its devastation in countries across the world, people are desperately clinging to the hopes of vaccine to come in public circulation before the year ends.

Currently, there are more than 155 potential vaccine candidates in different stages of clinical trials and 26 of them have reached the human trials phase. As of now, 5 vaccine candidates have kickstarted their Phase III (last stage) trials to understand their safety and efficacy on volunteers of different age groups. The vaccine candidates developed by Oxford University-AstraZeneca, Chinese drugmaker Sinopharm, Chinese pharmaceutical giant Sinovac and American Biotechnology company Moderna Inc have all reached Phase III of human trials.

However, it must be noted that even in the best-case scenario, the chances of a safe and effective vaccine to get into mass production before the end of 2020 are really slim. Maybe this is why a few scientists have taken the ‘do-it-yourself’ approach when it comes to developing a vaccine for the novel coronavirus.

Yes, as per a report published in a leading media outlet, around 20 scientists (many of them associated with the Harvard University) are whipping out do-it-yourself vaccine concoctions to battle the novel coronavirus in borrowed libraries. They consider it a superior alternative to waiting for more than a year for a COVID vaccine to get regulatory approvals.

The core group which calls itself Rapid Deployment Vaccine Collaborative, or Radvac was formed by American biologist Preston Estep who was ready to guide an independent COVID vaccine project. According to technologyreview.com, RADVAC group carefully studied and analyzed the vaccine reports of SERS and MERS, which are illness caused by coronaviruses.

After this, they decided to make a subunit vaccine with a simple formula, which could be made with easily available materials. They used peptides (fragments of the protein present in the novel coronavirus) and mixed it with chitosans (a sugar that is obtained from the hard outer skeleton of shellfish) to administer the vaccine. The subunit vaccine is supposed to be squirted up the nose as it is a nasal vaccin

While the celebrated geneticist George Church of the Harvard University took the nasal vaccine developed by Estep in the month of July, the jury is still not out on its safety and efficacy against the novel coronavirus. Estep’s DIY nasal vaccine has met its fair share of sceptics and critics who believe that a nasal subunit vaccine is not potent enough to induce a desired immune system response to battle the novel coronavirus.

What’s more, a dangerous side-effect of taking a DIY COVID vaccine is called as “enhancement” which essentially means that self-experimentation without complete knowledge of what is going inside the body, may actually put you at the risk of a much severe COVID disease.

Infact, as of now, the Radvac group does not know whether its DIY nasal vaccine is effective in producing protective antibodies in the body or not. Estep maintains that the subunit vaccine is a way to potentially provide multiple layers of protection against the virus (in addition to social distancing and wearing masks) and not the ultimate solution. It must be noted that the FDA (US Food and Drug Administration) is yet to comment on the legality of the DIY vaccine produced by the group.