As the Covid outbreak intensifies once again all over the world, researchers in Japan have confirmed that they are working on a 'dream' Covid-19 vaccine which will provide lifelong protection against the virus.
Led by Michinori Kohara, who has worked on the subject of smallpox vaccine for over three decades, a team of researchers at Tokyo's Metropolitan Institute of Medical Science has been working on the creation of a Covid-19 vaccine with lifetime efficacy.
The vaccine could be a game-changer as the fight against the coronavirus drags on into its third year, reported the Japan Times.
"In April 2020, Kohara, in cooperation with the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, started developing a recombinant vaccinia virus containing the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes Covid-19. They picked the nonpathogenic strain of the vaccinia virus variant called DIs, which works as an extremely effective and safe viral vector for delivering the SARS-CoV-2 spike gene," reported one of the largest and oldest English-language daily newspapers of the country.
It was in 2020, when the pandemic was first reported, that Kohara began his research to develop a vaccine based on the tried and tested smallpox vaccine.
The vaccine that Kohara is spearheading can produce potent neutralising antibodies within a week of inoculation and induce the strongest cellular immunity of any vaccine, he says. That would be significant as none of the currently available COVID-19 vaccines appear to offer long-term protection.
"I have worked on various vaccine technologies such as the adenovirus and messenger RNA, but the vaccine using the vaccinia virus vector is the most powerful of all with few side effects," Kohara told The Japan Times in an interview.
"The characteristics of this vaccine is that it can induce antibodies and lifelong immunity. One shot of the vaccine keeps its efficacy for more than 20 months, and there is no other vaccine that can achieve these effects," he added.
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