The Mexican government is considering declaring the end of the pandemic as the United States did, and the Patria vaccine never arrived. To develop the biological project, from 2020 to date 422 million 897 thousand 939 pesos have been invested, according to a request for information from the National Council of Science and Technology (Conacyt); however, the government plan is about to be surpassed.
Also read: Vaccina Patria seems to surpass other doses in the world in immunity, presumes López-Gatell
Even, at the international level, the World Health Organization (WHO) is studying declaring the end of the emergency due to Covid-19 this year.
The Mexican investigation polarizes the opinions among the experts, since on the one hand it is considered an opportunity for a national industry to develop again to produce vaccines on a massive scale with a view to confronting possible pandemics.
And on the other, they point out that public resources have been squandered because the vaccine will no longer meet the objective of its creation, and the virus has mutated on several occasions; Given this scenario, an updated vaccine is necessary.
The doubts of the experts were also expressed by the researchers from the AviMex Laboratory, in a document with preliminary results that they published in the American Society for Microbiology of the United States, where they recognized that “the appearance of virus variants that can partially escape the responses of antibodies is cause for concern”.
Until now, no results of the research phases have been published, but said trial detailed that the vaccine was initially tested in 62 pigs between three and 10 weeks of age, free of specific pathogens and with a similar weight of approximately 1.5 kilograms.
There they also acknowledged that the study had limitations: “First we were unable to assess the immune response locally in the nasal mucosa or respiratory tract of vaccinated pigs, as appropriate sampling methods and standardized tests for testing have not yet been locally established and qualified. assess mucosal immunity. In addition, no challenge was performed, since the porcine model is not susceptible to the SARS-CoV-2”.
In interview with THE UNIVERSAL, Dr. Alejandro Macías, former special commissioner for Influenza Care in Mexico between 2009 and 2010, said that the Patria vaccine could allow having a vaccine production platform for another pandemic.
“The objective of the Patria vaccine is more towards Mexico having a vaccine production platform for a next pandemic that allows a very rapid response to have millions of doses. It has been slow, you have to remember that a vaccine is rarely ready before 10 years ”, he explained.
He affirmed that if the Patria vaccine has positive results to immunize the population, “as the initial studies seem to have shown, it is a good promise for Mexico to gradually recover sovereignty in the production of vaccines in the future.”
He asserted that the investment is justified, and cannot be compared with the billions of pesos invested by transnational companies: “There were companies, in this case Moderna, that received more than a billion dollars, the same amount that was invested, for example , Pfizer, so the investment in Mexico has no comparison with that, and it is more than justified”, explained the doctor Alejandro Macías.
For his part, Dr. Héctor Enrique Rossete pointed out that there are multiple mutations of the omicron variant and its subvariants, which are the cause of most of the current infections, for which reason the Patria vaccine, developed with the original Wuhan strain , it would have a “very limited efficacy and today it would arrive too late and it is no longer the ideal vaccine that is required.”
“[Con la inversión] the government could have acquired more vaccines and applied it to the Health sector, due to the shortage of medicines. I think it was not ideal or correct and now we can say that it was money thrown away, ”she commented in an interview with this newspaper.
He stressed that there is an ambiguous communication on the part of the government, which raises doubts about whether the investigation continues or has been stopped, due to statements to the contrary by the director of Conacyt, María Elena Álvarez-Buylla, and the Secretary of Health, Jorge Alcocer.
Also read: Vaccina Patria is in its last phase; at the end of the month the registration of volunteers begins: Conacyt
“The same person in charge of Conacyt named the vaccine the best in the world, which is not true, much less right now that it has not been developed, so we see that on the one hand it says that it is continuing its phase and on the other hand we have a secretary of Health that, a few days ago, says that it was not finally developed and that for real reasons it was not carried out. So, we no longer know if it is still ongoing or they have already stopped it, ”he explained.
The immunologist María Antonieta Basurto commented that the Patria vaccine can be a good biologic, but the vaccines have to be updated according to the evolution of the virus, because it has changed so much that it needs an updated immune system that includes, at least, the original variant. omicron, and not just the original strain.
“The omicron variant has changed so much, it is already very different from the original strain (used in the development of Patria), the S protein consists of 1,273 amino acids; omicron, in any of its subvariants, has around 20 to 30 mutations, mainly concentrated in the RBD domain,” he explained.
He added that mutations can give the virus an evolutionary advantage, for example, help it transmit more easily or be more virulent, so the Patria vaccine may partially protect against Covid-19, but if it is used as a booster, it will also its efficacy must be verified through specific clinical studies for this purpose.
“It is not enough to say that a biological is good, you have to prove that it is really good with scientific studies, that is what the preclinical phases and clinical phases are for,” he asserted.
In response to the request for information, the Conacyt detailed that it allocated 135 million 264 thousand 464 pesos during 2020, and 49 million 224 thousand 023 pesos in 2021, for the development of the vaccine against SARS-CoV-2, with the strain NDV LaSota.
Until October 2022, the Phase II study of the Patria vaccine was carried out, with intermediate results in processed samples, and 40 million 127 thousand 833 pesos were invested. From November of last year to date, an additional 198 million 281 thousand 619 pesos were assigned to conduct the Phase II/III study of the project.
