Update about existing COVID vaccines

It has been a year since the world drastically changed its recent history. The Covid-19 pandemic forced us to rethink our lifestyle and our health care. In this context, the World Health Organization (WHO) works with governments and laboratories worldwide to find a solution to this scourge. Vaccines save millions of lives each year.

Human beings live with thousands of viruses and bacteria, which we must deal with to prevent diseases. What do vaccines do? Train and prepare the body's natural defenses, what we call the immune system. At the end of March 2021, at least ten vaccines against Covid-19 are being administered in different countries, following protocols that prioritize the people most vulnerable to the virus. It should be noted that there are more than 200 experimental vaccines in development, of which more than 60 are in the clinical phase.

As the WHO explains, vaccines are a fundamental tool to end COVID-19. Work is being done as quickly as possible so that vaccines and treatments can end this pandemic. Continuing with what the WHO explains, there are three main methods for designing a vaccine. And the review is very accurate.

Basically: "the methods are distinguished according to whether they use whole viruses or bacteria; only the fragments of the pathogen that induce an immune system response; or just the genetic material that contains the instructions for making specific proteins and not the whole virus. " At present, ten vaccines have been authorized by a competent regulatory authority for public use. Also, there are more than 60 candidate vaccines in clinical research.

Vaccines can be classified according to the vector they use to introduce SARS-CoV-2 material.

In these circumstances, the ten vaccines in use, according to their classification, are:

• Messenger RNA vaccines
• Tozinameran (Pfizer-BioNTech)
• mRNA-1273 (Modern)
• Inactivated coronavirus vaccines
• BBIBP-CorV (Sinopharm)
• BBV152 (Bharat Biotech)
• CoronaVac (Sinovac)
• WIBP (Sinopharm)
• Vaccines from other viral vectors
• Sputnik V (Gamaleya)
• AZD1222 (Oxford -AstraZeneca)
• Ad5-nCoV (CanSino Biologics)
• Peptide antigen vaccine
• EpiVacCorona (Vektor Institute)
• In terms of efficacy, the highest achieved by a Covid-19 vaccine is 95%.
• Other vaccines are less effective.
• And in some cases, some are only 50% effective.
• The storage temperature of the different vaccines is of particular importance.
• Inactivated adenovirus or coronavirus vaccines are safely stored in traditional refrigerators or refrigerators.
• Meanwhile, messenger RNAs require freezers at -20C, as happens with the Moderna laboratory vaccine.
• They even need colder, like the -80C that Pfizer's vaccine needs, which significantly complicates its distribution.
• It is worth adding that we are in a context of limited production capacity by the laboratories.
• Undoubtedly, this issue has led the states to implement plans to distribute the vaccine in stages, giving priority to the population at risk, the elderly, and people with a high degree of exposure and transmission, as is the case in most cases with health workers.