One of the most common concerns about the COVID-19 vaccine goes like this:
“It cannot be a quality vaccine because it was developed too fast,” and “Why don’t we have one (an HIV vaccine) after 37 years, when we have several for COVID-19 after a few months?”
The assumption that COVID-19 vaccines were developed “too fast” and are therefore unsafe and do not work is false and based on a misunderstanding of several issues. This false narrative has been hijacked and spread by anti-vaccination lobby groups to discredit COVID-19 vaccines and vaccines in general.
The scientific facts are that the speeded-up process did not compromise safety or the scientific integrity of COVID-19 vaccines. In part, it reflected the extraordinary scientific advances in the types of vaccines which allowed scientist to do things in months, that took years before.
There are several reasons (see below) why a COVID-19 vaccine was developed at such impressive speed, compared to other vaccines.
The benefit of new communication technology and information sharing
At the height of the HIV/AIDS global epidemic in the 1990s, researchers and clinicians tried to combat the disease in what was then an unprecedented effort. But today’s technology and the pace of information sharing surpasses what was possible over 30 years ago.
In about 100 days (about 3 and a half months) the scientific community identified SARS-CoV-2, sequenced the genome, understood transmission, understood the proteins at play, and understood the receptor that enters the cell. This came about because scientists decided to release their data quickly. Twitter became a vehicle for discussion and the publishing of pre-prints became standard practice. In the face of a public health emergency, academic secrecy gave way to scientific collaboration.
SARS-CoV-2 spread rapidly and in the absence of a biomedical form of prevention or any proven treatment for COVID-19, the global scientific community realized it was a top priority to develop a vaccine. Consequently, substantial emergency funding, massive resources, personnel, and high-level global cooperation became available.
📖Read on! The following articles describe the unprecedented global collaboration and cooperation triggered to finding prevention and treatment options for COVID-19:
- https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01571-1?u
- https://sciencebusiness.net/covid-19/news/covid-19-triggered-unprecedented-collaboration-research
The benefit of past study
There is a misconception that researchers had to start from scratch with the emergence of SARS-CoV-2. However, SARS-CoV-2 belongs to a family of coronaviruses that have been studied for decades. Vaccination studies and strategies for the coronaviruses SARS and MERS gave scientists a head-start for the development of vaccines for SARS-CoV-2.
The benefit of parallel processing
Phase 1 and 2 clinical trials for COVID-19 vaccines were also run simultaneously for some studies, accelerating the clinical trial process. Through parallel processing (science processes carried out simultaneously at different research institutes) there was greater efficiency in getting results and time was saved.
The benefit of new mRNA technology
In addition, using the messenger RNA (mRNA) technology platform for COVID-19 vaccine development and adaptation is much quicker than for traditional vaccines. Long in development for potential future use, it was the first time that messenger RNA (mRNA) technology was being applied in a fully developed vaccine. Hopes are that an HIV vaccine using this technology will be successful in future.
The US biotech company Moderna that used the mRNA approach for its highly efficacious COVID-19 vaccine has launched the first clinical trial of an mRNA HIV vaccine in the United States. This comes more than 60 years after HIV was first identified in what is now Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
See: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04805125?term=Moderna&cond=HIV&draw=2&rank=1
Developing a vaccine for HIV
Importantly the challenge, so far, in developing an efficacious vaccine for HIV has a lot to do with the complex characteristics of the HIV-virus. It mutates rapidly and has unique ways of evading the immune system. HIV replicates itself once every 24 hours, and this means that variants can emerge at a very high rate, compared to other viruses. As a result, there are 60+ dominant strains of HIV and a multitude more variants. An effective vaccine would have to be able to work against multiple “versions” of the virus.
With SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses, as soon as infection occurs, the immune system creates antibodies that start to target the germ (pathogen). But that same process is not triggered with HIV. HIV targets the immune system itself. The very cells which help us mount an immune response are the ones targeted by HIV. A vaccine’s function is to “teach the immune system” to fight a pathogen; however, it becomes extremely complicated when the virus works by compromising that very immune system. The new investigational HIV vaccine from Moderna relies on messenger RNA (mRNA) to activate the immune system against the virus.
📚 Continue reading to learn more:
- HIV/AIDS vaccine: Why don’t we have one after 37 years, when we have several for COVID-19 after a few months?
- https://www.verywellhealth.com/hiv-vaccine-development-4057071
Additionally, be sure to check out this journalist resource and reporting tip sheet, that directly compares HIV and COVID-19 vaccine development: