Dr Gertie speaks on Covid19 vaccines (2).
8 min read
Continued from last week.
Your critics will say that you are saying all these because you are protecting your profession, why are you so sure of your claim?
What is there to protect in my profession? Did we lose anything before? This is somewhat funny. We have been stressed by this pandemic. Emotionally traumatized! Why would we wish this on ourselves? Many doctors have lost income because of mitigation measures to include social distancing in the clinics. Does my profession really need a pandemic? The public may not know this, but people in my profession have been warning of this kind of a pandemic for a very long time. I can easily predict for you right now that another pandemic will happen. We just don’t know when but it is only a matter of time.
This is why in 2016, the US Government listened to scientists and created a Pandemic Unit. Unfortunately, that Pandemic Unit was disbanded in May 2018 by the last US government. Perhaps, the US response and subsequent death toll may have been positively affected by the disbanded unit if they were available. We will never know now. I hope our people will listen to the facts.
Can you explain why some countries have refused to accept the vaccine?
There are 2 African countries I know of. You will have to find out their reasons from those countries. As at this time, in Africa, I believe the countries who have not signed up for COVID-19 vaccine are Tanzania, Madagascar, Burundi, and Eritrea. I read somewhere that Burundi and Eritrea are actually still doing documentation for the COVID-19 vaccine. So the only countries not accepting the COVID-19 vaccine at this time are Tanzania (they had previously denied that COVID-19 virus exist) and Madagascar (they claimed they made their own COVID-19 herbal cure). As at this time, we don’t have any scientific evidence on their cure. And, despite their “cure”, they are still having COVID-19.
Some vaccines had instructions on them which say, “this is not for distribution in Canada and USA.” Why is it so?
I believe what you are referring to is the picture of a packet of the new drug – generic is called Remdesivir (brand name Veklury). And yes, this may happen with the vaccine too. That drug is manufactured by Gilead who has the patent. They invested years of efforts and huge amount of resources to make that drug. Remember that COVID-19 is ravaging the world and Gilead (or another pharmaceutical company) cannot: Produce enough of that medication for the whole world at once. Sell it at the same price it sells that drug in the US. It has to make consideration for other less well to do countries. Therefore, to extend the supply to the other areas of the world, the company signs what they call non-exclusive licensing agreements with other pharmaceutical companies in other parts of the world to produce same drug (or vaccine) for certain areas.
This way, the main company (Gilead etc) gets to keep their market shares in the US and sell exclusively at the price they want to recover their huge investment in the US. They still get the medication (or vaccine) to other areas of the world and still make profits. My brother, it is not everything that is sinister.
Dr, please this one is simple; how many years does the clinical trial for new drugs etc last?
Traditionally, it may take up to 10 years or more to go through the different stages (including clinical trials) of producing a vaccine.
Tell us the stages of producing a vaccine.
The different stages of development of a vaccine include Preclinical stage -Research & Development, Animal Studies -, Phase 1, 2 & 3 Human Clinical Trials (with Independent Board Review), then Regulators Review & Approval/Licensure, Manufacturing, Distribution, Human Clinical Trials Phase 4 etc. As an aside, the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are currently in a 2 year Phase 4 Human Clinical Trials.
How come the COVID-19 vaccine came out within months?
Excellent question. There are some factors that helped in accelerating the production of the COVID-19 vaccine. As we all know, in this modern times, there has never been any other illness that generated this amount of worldwide interest. The last pandemic was 102 years prior. These factors that helped with accelerating the COVID-19 vaccines production are as follows: i. Coronaviruses are NOT new. What is new is Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) which is a novel coronavirus species in the family Coronaviridae.
It is very important to note that the research and development of the COVID-19 vaccines did not start from scratch. Like I said before, other coronaviruses have been in existence for a long time including SARS (2002) and MERS (2012). There has been several years and tons of research done on the virology especially the very important Coronavirus SPIKE PROTEIN. This pertinent information came in handy for making the COVID19 vaccine. ii. Global Vaccine Research Collaboration.
COVID-19 pandemic brought the world economies to their knees. This brought about an urgency necessitating various vaccine research collaborations globally. This enabled data sharing. iii. Governments Partnership And Funding Other Organizations. The clearest case of this is the US Government that invested billions of dollars in funding for the COVID-19 vaccine project on a FINANCIALLY AT RISK BASIS! This means if the COVID-19 vaccines don’t work, the Government loses their money and not the pharmaceutical companies. This helped a lot in accelerating the process of making the vaccines. It also removed a lot of bureaucracy that usually would delay the process.
Tell us other factors.
- mRNA technology. This technology has been worked on since 1990 mainly by Dr Katalin Kariko. Later, other scientists have joined in this mRNA research for the past 30 years. This technology allows the process of vaccine production to be faster as it bypasses the time consuming process of generating actual viruses to use in making the vaccine. With this technology, mRNA is synthesized in the laboratory and then given to us as a vaccine. When it gets into our cell cytoplasms (NOT NUCLEUS OR DNA), it uses the ribosomes and other enzymes in the cytoplasm to teach our cells how to make the SPIKE PROTEIN of COVID-19 virus. Our body then recognizes the spike protein as foreign (an antigen) and then forms antibodies to neutralize it. Therefore, if we come in contact with the actual COVID-19 virus, our body will be ready to defend us.
Tell us about some of the vaccines.
The mRNA vaccines (Pfizer BioNtech & Moderna) as well as the viral-vector vaccines (AstraZeneca/Oxford University, Johnson & Johnson, Sputnik v) do not contain the actual virus and so they CANNOT give us COVID-19 infection.
There is also Combined Phases of the Human Clinical Trials. The ability to combine various phases of the Human Clinical Trials help to quickly identify certain patient factors that affected the vaccine safety and or efficacy.
Was there an increase in the number of Study/Testing Sites? If yes, how did it also help?
There was an increase in the number of study/testing sites and it helped to make it easier to enroll and collect a stupendous amount of data for the COVID-19 vaccine Studies. There are some other lesser factors. But I hope you get the point I am trying to make. The economic power of the world came together and with their resources, we got COVID-19 vaccine in record time. Personally, I am grateful because I do not want to lose any other patients to COVID-19 infection.
Why is it that there is no vaccine for cancer and HIV/AIDS till date after over 3 decades of intensive and highly funded research works while COVID-19, that just came about a year ago, has a vaccine already?
This is a very good question. So many years have been spent researching for a potent HIV vaccine to no avail as at this time. The research continues. The main issue is that the HIV/AIDS virus is constantly MUTATING and makes it very difficult to TARGET the virus for an HIV vaccine as at this time. As for malaria vaccine, WHO addressed this before “The development of a malaria vaccine has faced several obstacles: the lack of a traditional market, few developers, and the technical complexity of developing any vaccine against a parasite. Malaria parasites have a complex life cycle, and there is poor understanding of the complex immune response to malaria infection.” However, currently, there is a malaria vaccine that is being tried out only in a few African countries (Nigeria not included yet). The efficacy is less than 40% as at this time. It is still better than nothing.
What about cancer?
As for cancer, there are multiple different cancers in the body so the strategies maybe different and complex. Right now, what we do is surveillance and preventative measures like checking mammogram (for breast cancer), prostate exam and tests (for prostate cancer), Pap smear (for cervical cancer), colonoscopy (for colon cancer) etc.
My hope is that, with the newer technologies in medicine, we may have better chances for these vaccines and others in future.
Doctors who disagree with you on COVID-19, why do you think they want to deceive the world? What will be their gain?
The issue is that we generally have certain things that have been scientifically agreed upon as simple facts. For example, in simple mathematics, we all know that 4+4=8. That is a SIMPLE fact. When another mathematician (who has had questionable views in the past) now comes and tells us that 4+4=10, what do you think the vast majority of mathematicians will say? When a supposed bonafide medical scientist makes any of the above assertions that I had previously answered/debunked above, what do you think the vast majority of medical scientists will say?
You have been vocal on the issue of Covid19. Why is it so?
My intention to speak out as an expert in this field is to bring to my own people ACCURATE AND GOOD INFORMATION to help them make hopefully better decisions for themselves and their families. Knowledge is power! This, in fact is the most important contribution I can bring to my own people, even more than money. Ndu ka uba (health is better than wealth).
Is it by force to take Covid19 vaccine?
In fact, to be very clear, the COVID-19 vaccine is NOT BY FORCE. It is your personal right to choose whether to take it or not to take it. However, every country also has the right to protect its citizens and economy to say the least. They may require certain assurances for public safety.
Do you want Nigerians to go for the vaccine?
My advice to Nigerians is they should consider taking any COVID-19 vaccine that is approved by NAFDAC.
To be continued next week.
