Usually when you are vaccinated, the syringe contains the inactivated virus. As soon as it enters the body, our immune system produces specific antibodies, which keep them in memory until we come into real contact with the virus.
In the messenger RNA vaccine, there is no longer a weakened virus in the syringe, but part of its genetic code: it is the messenger RNA. Once injected, it is he who will give the order to the cell to create what is called the spicule, the specific protein of the coronavirus. These harmless spicules around cells are detected by our immune system which will create antibodies. The day we come into contact with the real virus these antibodies will be able to neutralize it.
This is the first time that this technology has been used on a large scale. Messenger RNA has however already been used in the development of certain vaccines against rabies, for example, but has never gone beyond the stage of clinical trials. So why use it now?
These vaccines give very good results
Faced with the urgency of the pandemic, the laboratories had little time, but received a lot of money.
“The strategy has been to put as much money as possible on the table so that all technologies can be tested, regardless of whether they have been proven to work,” explains Eric Muraille, researcher at the FNRS, biologist and ULB immunologist. “What is surprising, but what is very good news, is that these vaccines are giving very good results.”
What long-term effects?
No risk of messenger RNA modifying our genes according to immunology experts. What about long term effects? The question arises for any drug that enters the market. But be sure, no treatment has ever been as closely watched as the vaccine against the coronavirus.
“Not only are clinical studies continuing with these vaccines, despite the fact that they will be on the market for at least another year or even two years”, says Jean-Michel Dogné, vaccine safety expert at the Belgian Medicines Agency. “Second, these vaccines are going to be monitored at an extraordinary level.”
Pfizer and Moderna are the two firms that today use messenger RNA. A promising vaccine but a fragile molecule, it must be kept cold, below -70 °.
COVID-19 Belgium: where is the epidemic this Sunday, December 13?
– .
