The year 2020 is one we will always remember. It has been the year of the coronavirus. The year of masks and gloves, the year many of us did not expect. Since this new betacoronavirus emerged in December 2019, scientists have been hard at work looking for a solution to this virus responsible for such a major pandemic. As with many other diseases such as polio, chicken pox, scientists have come up with a vaccine to protect against the coronavirus.
This vaccine is possibly the most anticipated vaccine in recent history, and there is a lot of skepticism surrounding it, with many people expressing no desire to take the vaccine. Some of this skepticism is unfounded, however the fact is that it usually takes many many years for vaccines to undergo extensive testing before being approved for use by the public, so it is understandable if some people have questions about a vaccine that appears to have taken less than a year to be approved. Because knowledge will always be power, it is best to educate yourself as much as possible about the virus AND the vaccine in order to make an informed decision whether to take the vaccine or not.
As we are aware, coronavirus spreads very easily and the majority of the population are still at risk of serious illness secondary to this deadly virus. Therefore, a safe and effective vaccine is likely to reduce the number of people getting infected by this virus.
The first thing to understand is how the immune system works. The immune system attacks anything foreign to your body. It mounts an attack against any foreign protein or virus or bacteria in your body. If it is fighting off a virus for example, it takes time to mount a full response. The immune system needs to figure out what parts of the virus to attack and to increase production of the materials needed to launch this attack. This may take a few days.
Once the immune system is able to successfully fight off the virus, it has memory cells that remember the virus and how it was defeated. So if the immune system comes across the same virus again, it can mount a successful immune response even quicker than the first time.
Scientists looked at the COVID virus and saw a protein on the outside of the virus that looked like it would be susceptible to an attack. If you’ve seen any pictures depicting the corona virus, you may have noticed some red spikes on the virus, these are the proteins which the virus uses to enter the cells of the body, and these proteins also make the virus more infectious.
Scientists looked at the entire sequence of the virus and found the RNA that is the blueprint for that protein. The RNA is the set of instructions that tell the cell exactly what to make. mRNA (messenger RNA) give instructions to the cell to make something.
Scientists took the blueprint for those proteins depicted as red spikes on the corona virus and made an mRNA version of it. That is, just the instructions on how to make that specific protein and these instructions are the vaccine.
The vaccine contains no actual part of the virus and therefore can not cause disease. So when you get the vaccine, you do not get the virus, all your body gets is the instructions on how to make the spike protein. The cells in your body receive these instructions and go ahead to make their own spike proteins.
Remember that your immune system is designed to attack anything foreign to your body so when it encounters these new spike proteins your body is producing in response to receiving the vaccine, it starts to attack the protein. Now this is a new protein which it has never encountered before and the “attack” may result in symptoms such as fever, chills, muscle soreness. These symptoms do not mean that one has gotten the disease by taking the vaccine, instead, these are just things that are happening as a result of your body mounting a successful attack against this covid like spike protein your body has produced.
Now that your body has been exposed to these spike proteins thanks to the mRNA in the vaccine, the memory cells of your body now know exactly how to fight these specific proteins and are better able to destroy it next time, so should you get exposed to the virus, your immune system will destroy it. Your body also breaks down the mRNA instructions because you do not need them anymore. So essentially, after a few days of taking the vaccine, nothing from the vaccine is left in your body, except now your memory cells can recognize the spike protein of the coronavirus.
Now we do not know for sure how long this memory lasts. Some vaccines require a booster after a few years in order to establish full immunity. Studies are still ongoing and many questions are yet to be answered.
One such question is what if the virus mutates and doesn’t use the spike protein (which the vaccine is targeted at) anymore. Well this means that the protein is likely to be less infectious without the spike proteins and this is also good news.
The vaccine is only 95% effective and the effectiveness will also depend on how strong your immune system is in the first place as this determines its ability to mount an effective response. This does mean that it may not be very effective in people who are severely immunocompromised but this is the same as most other vaccines and not unique to this one.
The COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine BNT162b2 is a messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) vaccine. It contains the genetic sequence (mRNA) for the spike protein, which is found on the surface of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, wrapped in a lipid envelope (referred to as a nanoparticle) to enable it to be transported into the cells in the body.
The safety and immunogenicity of the COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine BNT162b2 has been evaluated in clinical trials carried out in six countries: the USA, Germany, Brazil, Argentina, South Africa and Turkey. The clinical trials enrolled over 44 000 participants of different ages, gender, race and ethnicity. The data from the clinical trials are quite reassuring as no safety concerns were reported in those who received the vaccine
As with most medicines, there are possible side effects that come with the vaccine. Possible adverse reactions are usually mild and transient and may include injection site pain, fever, chills, fatigue, muscle aches, joint pain and headache. These usually resolve within 7 days.
It is important to bear in mind that all of this is fairly new and lots of questions still need to be answered regarding this virus and vaccine, but remember that the reason why we do not have diseases like polio ravaging entire communities anymore is because of vaccines. I encourage everyone to educate themselves as much as possible on the risks and benefits of vaccinations in order to make an informed decision about the COVID vaccine.
