Second Wave

[sasguru]

I don't think that's a vaccine, it's an antiviral used for the very ill.

Ah yes you're right. But I guess, in practice,an effective cure would be as good as vaccine, particularly if a vaccine can't be found.

[Old Greg]

Ah yes you're right. But I guess, in practice,an effective cure would be as good as vaccine, particularly if a vaccine can't be found.

A cure would be an improvement on no cure, but at a global level, vaccines are reasonably easily deployed and remove the need for diagnosis and treatment by an antiviral drug, which is difficult to deploy globally. And even in a developed country, consider the difference between the two approaches on health services and the economy.

[sasguru]

A cure would be an improvement on no cure, but at a global level, vaccines are reasonably easily deployed and remove the need for diagnosis and treatment by an antiviral drug, which is difficult to deploy globally. And even in a developed country, consider the difference between the two approaches on health services and the economy.

Yes, well let's hope, against precedent as others have noted, that a vaccine can be developed.
But also if something can ameliorate, while not being a cure, such that for example the "cytokine storm" is stopped, then that would be something.

Coronavirus: Cytokine storm syndrome treatments for Covid-19 patients may cut death rates - Vox

[DimPrawn]

Some of these antivirals are very expensive too, in the region of $1000 per treatment. Vaccines tend to me much cheaper (if they work).

[Old Greg]

Some of these antivirals are very expensive too, in the region of $1000 per treatment. Vaccines tend to me much cheaper (if they work).

But how much do they cost to produce (rather than buy from the patent holding pharma company) and are individual countries prepared to take action to ignore the patent? Genuine question, BTW, I've no idea how much they cost to produce and am interested.

[AtW]

Some of these antivirals are very expensive too, in the region of $1000 per treatment. Vaccines tend to me much cheaper (if they work).

Cheap - using ICU bed for a day is more expensive (especially in US)

Working anti viral will allow to reopen economy - if people know chances catching virus are low AND effective treatment readily available then fear will subside.

Hopefully Remdesivir works

[sasguru]

Look for Len Seymour (Professor of gene therapy at Oxford) on Linkedin for an interesting discussion om inhaled therapies.

[OwlHoot]

Avian Coronavirus causes billions of $$$ global loss to the poultry industry and the pharma companies have been working on a vaccine for farmers for about 20 years. So far nothing works well for long. There is serious money to be made there if one could be developed.

Avian coronavirus - Wikipedia

Or to put it into human terms. You get vaccinated. Go out all confident you are safe, and a different strain kills you a month later.

All these problems could be effectively solved if/when it is possible to produce antibodies synthetically from an artificial immune system from a sample of the patient's (human or bird, or anything) immune cells or just a generic species-specific sample.

All you'd then have to do is breed the virus in a culture of the cells it naturally invades, and mix this with the artificial immune system in a test tube and collect the antibodies to treat patients until their immune system could produce its own.

(I presume administered antibodies don't cause an adverse reaction in the immune system. After all, isn't snake anti-venom produced in much the same way from the blood of horses given small doses of the venom? )

[DimPrawn]

But how much do they cost to produce (rather than buy from the patent holding pharma company) and are individual countries prepared to take action to ignore the patent? Genuine question, BTW, I've no idea how much they cost to produce and am interested.

Probably a few tens of dollars knowing how these patent holding drug companies gouge the market. No idea if lives are more important than rules and money to governments.

[AtW]

R&D biggest cost, plus extra costs of failed drugs - it’s all fixed, so mass producing billion dozes should not be that bad - it will available as “generic” - nobody in Chuna will give a fook about patent for live saving drug