A new vaccine that is still in a Phase I clinical trial, promises to activate T-cells, the memory cells of the immune system, in the battle against coronavirus.
The CoVac-1 vaccine candidate, developed at the University of Tübingen in Germany with funding from the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Research, includes six coronavirus peptides that have been found to be recognised by immune T-cells in patients who have had the disease.
According to results from the first clinical trials, as published in the journal Nature, the candidate vaccine induces T-cell immunity for at least three months and shows a favourable safety profile.
In the phase I clinical trial, a single subcutaneous injection of CoVac-1 was given to 36 healthy adults in Germany aged 18 to 80 years. By day 56 after vaccination, no serious or life-threatening adverse events were noted.
Adverse events
All participants developed a granuloma at the injection site, which was expected. The granuloma remained at the site after day 56. Also, approximately one-third of the participants reported transient fatigue. Other adverse reactions included severe local erythema in 19% of participants, accompanied by severe oedema in 6% of them, but these subsided within two days. Also 22% of participants reported swollen lymph nodes in the groin. Chickenpox-herpes zoster virus and herpes simplex virus were reactivated in two subjects. None of the volunteers contracted the virus until the 56th day of follow-up.
Efficacy
Of the participants in the clinical trial, no one contracted coronavirus , in the control period lasting up to 56 days.
The candidate vaccine elicited a series of T-cell responses, including interferon-γ T-cells that lasted 3 months and exceeded those produced either by the infection itself in patients who had passed the disease or were induced by vaccination with approved vaccines. In laboratory tests, it was found that mutant peptides from worrisome variants of coronavirus, such as Delta, did not affect the T-cell response.
"CoVac-1 may well serve as a complementary vaccine to induce T-cell immunity, particularly in elderly and immunocompromised individuals with impaired ability to generate adequate immune responses following vaccination against coronavirus with currently approved vaccines," the authors of the study noted.
Researchers are now moving on to a clinical trial to evaluate the same vaccine in patients with B-cell deficiency.
Source.gr
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