ALL IN ONE ‘SUPER’ COVID VACCINES COULD SLOW NEXT PANDEMIC, STUDY FINDS
Stockpiling vaccines that protect against multiple different coronaviruses could reduce deaths and the need for lockdowns during future global pandemics, according to a new study.
Researchers at Imperial College London modelled the impact of all-in-one jabs to understand if they were worth developing. Such jabs would not be as efficacious as shots for specific coronaviruses like Mers or Sars, for example, but could be made in advance of an outbreak and stockpiled.
The modelling study, published in Nature, suggests that while the strategy would not do much to contain the spread of a new fast moving virus like Covid-19, it would “buy time” by reducing deaths.
Less pressure on health care systems would in turn reduce the need for lockdowns, masks and other non-pharmaceutical interventions.
“Covid-19 showed us the catastrophic costs of facing a deadly new virus without a vaccine. Broadly protective coronavirus vaccines could change the game,” said Dr Richard Hatchett, CEO of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI).
“They would buy us valuable time in a future pandemic – saving lives, easing the burden on health systems, and helping societies to stay open – while scientists develop vaccines specifically targeting the new pathogen”.
If the jab had been available to a large proportion of the population during the pandemic, up to 65 per cent of deaths could have been averted in 2020 alone – equivalent to roughly 1.1 million lives – before Covid-19-specific vaccines were ready to be deployed, the researchers found.
In Italy, for example, the researchers found that even in a “moderate coverage scenario” – where around a third of people had the BPSV jab – “[it] could have reduced mortality during the first wave from 1,360 daily deaths at its peak to 750 deaths and total Covid-19 mortality over the first year from 124,500 to 59,900 deaths, a 52 per cent reduction.”
The researchers showed that with slower moving viruses, the all-in-one shots could be used to bring outbreaks to a complete end by using a ring-vaccination strategy.
Ring-vaccination, successfully used in past outbreaks of Ebola, involves vaccinating people around the vicinity of an outbreak – such as neighbours, friends, colleagues and healthcare workers – to stop further spread.
While the modelling study’s results are positive, all-in-one coronavirus vaccines do not yet exist for human use.
They are still in the very early stages of development and have not yet progressed through to human clinical trials.
Dr Nadia Cohen, CEPI’s Coronavirus Program Lead, said: “This is a really complex scientific challenge and it’s still early days, but we’re optimistic that coverage of multiple sarbecoviruses by a single vaccine is achievable.
“We’re backing a range of scientific approaches and seeing promising results from preclinical studies. Next year, the first CEPI-backed vaccine will enter human clinical trials to see whether it can elicit broad immunity in people – those results will be really significant.
“With the right level of investment and collaboration, we could establish proof of concept for broadly protective sarbecovirus vaccines in humans in the next few years,” Dr Cohen added.
Protect yourself and your family by learning more about Global Health Security
2025-10-03T16:15:47Z
