While the controversy over vaccines rages, there's one thing that can't be denied: Vaccines are expensive. For developing countries, this is a problem that has slowed vaccination rates and threatened public health. But what if nanotechnology could solve the issue? The future of vaccines may be closer than you think.
Blog List:
1) What is nanotechnology?
2) How will nanotechnology improve vaccines in the future?
3) Why is this important for the future of vaccines?
4) How does nanotechnology work against viruses and bacteria?
{tocify} $title={Table of Contents}
1. What is nanotechnology?
Nanotechnology is the study of manipulating matter on an atomic and molecular scale. It’s a branch of nanoscience that deals with the design and fabrication of microscopic structures to create materials and devices that have at least one dimension, that is less than 100 nanometres, which is equivalent to about a tenth the size of a red blood cell. Because vaccines are so expensive, countries around the world have turned to researchers around the world to find cheaper and faster ways to produce these vaccines. One of these new vaccines, developed by Chinese scientists, contains small quantities of asbestos. This toxin was long used as a type of electricity-producing insulation called fibers reinforced with asbestos. It was introduced into manufacture of asbestos-protective products in the US in the 1960s. Studies in the late 1970s suggested that asbestos fibers acted as immune stimulants when inhaled and when injected into the lungs. This thinking led to developing vaccines containing around 1 ppb of asbestos, which was deemed non-toxic.
However, in studies performed in China and other countries, researchers discovered that the inhaled and injected doses were highly variable, due to using different amounts of asbestos in the vaccine. This caused concern that each dose of the vaccine would confer immunity to a different strain of harmful asbestos. While only two vaccines have been tested in humans based on this research (the first used traces of 1 ppb in the vaccine and the second used around 10 ppb), most scientists agree that one of these new vaccines is likely to be effective.
So What Does It All Mean?
As scary as this all sounds, the bottom line is that no one should be freaked out about getting vaccinated. The only benefits of getting a vaccine are disease prevention and secondary protection from catching a disease. The difference between these two precautions is that vaccines make it harder for you to catch the disease, while using small amounts of asbestos, like what we are discussing here, only further complicates the situation, and can now cost you money.
2. How will nanotechnology improve vaccines in the future?
Nanotechnology is the science of working at the nanoscale. Nanotechnology is already being used in many products including food, cosmetics, clothing, and medicine. It’s also being used in developing new vaccines. Nanoparticles can be used to deliver vaccines in a targeted way, which means they can get to the areas of your body where they are needed quickly. This makes vaccines more cost effective and is a significant factor in reducing the number of deaths caused by preventable diseases. A study by Anglo-Swedish Company MSw showed that developing countries pay approximately three times more for vaccines compared to developed countries.
2. Vaccine manufacturing is more efficient than regular manufacturing Our current vaccines are manufactured in large, centralized factories. This requires a long and expensive process to make vaccines safe and effective. Vaccines are made using the same kinds of small, specialized nanoparticles used in medicine, but vaccines are also much more efficient. It takes fewer products to make a vaccine than regular vaccines. One needle produces about 50 doses of a vaccine, compared to 20 to 40 doses for regular vaccines. Most of the production process is automated, which makes it safer and less expensive to produce vaccines.
3. Vaccines are harmless for healthy people. I don’t need to tell you how critical common sense and a healthy immune system is. Getting sick from a vaccine is usually trivial and spreads through the population very rarely. So pulling out your vaccine makes you sick and spreads it to other people. By the time you realize that you’ve been infected, most of the world has already been infected. That’s why it’s important not to get a vaccine that’s been around for a year and keep using your old one.
How do you stop other countries from monopolizing the vaccine market? One possible solution is to lessen their ability to patent vaccines by passing laws protecting the genes of bacteria and viruses they want to prevent from being used against humans. But there are also laws that require large companies that profit from vaccines to buy up vaccine patents, making conventional medicine much more expensive.
Read More Details: The Future of Vaccines: Messenger RNA Vaccines
3. Why is this important for the future of vaccines?
Vaccines are important because they help us live longer and healthier. Vaccines protect people from infectious diseases and save lives. Vaccines work by exposing you to a weak form of the germs that cause certain diseases. The needle drops into the nasal cavity, and the virus slowly travels up your bloodstream and into muscle, bone and fat layers, and finally into your brain. The good bacteria then wipe out the bad bacteria, and you get a shot. Unfortunately, people all around the world don’t have enough money for a vaccine or access to experts who can administer it. For high-need populations in developed countries like the U.S., where access to healthcare and healthcare workers are limited, vaccines are a lifeline that can help bring stability and predictability back to a country hit hard by economic problems. High-risk populations use healthcare services for longer, since this specialist knowledge is within their control. In the developing world, however, people need to rely on local providers of healthcare services, who may not be trained to handle high-risk healthcare situations.
2. Another poor country’s tragedy: A World Health Organization (WHO) report says that some of the vaccines administered in developing countries have not been tested for their effectiveness. Robert Albo, the WHO assistant director-general addressing the vaccine response at the annual General Debate in Melbourne, Australia, said, “Vaccines must be the panacea, but we know only too well the disease that could be eradicated by a vaccine. And that disease is Ebola.” Even if a vaccine seems great, all it does is prevent the disease from being able to spread. For Western governments, who are funding much of the vaccine research, this puts the lives of many people at risk. Also, caring for a patient with a confirmed case of the disease can be extremely difficult.
4. How does nanotechnology work against viruses and bacteria?
Nanotechnology is a branch of technology that deals with structures that are on the scale of nanometers. Nanotechnology is often used in medicine and the biomedical field to create materials that can interact with cells and molecules. Nanotechnology is also used in the fight against viruses and bacteria by creating materials that can attach to their surface and be used to kill them. Normal vaccines start at approximately $1,000 per dose. Vaccines also cost additional money for research and development to specifically target the holder of the vaccine. The current substantial cost to develop vaccines also causes concerns among doctors that the practice of medicine could start to become unethical as cheap vaccines put doctors on a fast track towards cures, which cuts into the independence of doctors. Research on getting a vaccine to market means that recommendations can change. Currently, approximately 8 different vaccines are in clinical trials, with approval being granted for a few of them as there is not a sufficient supply of disease-fighting bacteria. While the development process does take 3-5 years, the process is funded by the World Health Organization in close coordination with the pharmaceutical companies who are developing the vaccines. Experimental vaccines work in unique ways. All diseases have an underlying biology that is necessary to a vaccine. It is important to note that science works differently in the gastrointestinal tract, where the enzymes and viruses needed to produce antibodies in humans do not exist. Scientists use methods known as conjugation in this scenario to trigger antibodies in lab cultures without having to look for them in a live animal. Because these antibodies are produced in the laboratory, it is possible to create a test for other diseases such as smallpox before any potential therapy has ever been produced. Thus, a vaccine which targets smallpox is effective to end smallpox before any treatments can be tested on animals. Another example where vaccines differ from conventional ones is that the oral route is abandoned in developing some vaccines.
Read More Details: Messenger RNA Definition, Role, and Function: What Do Messenger RNAs Do?
Conclusion: Vaccines are critical to keeping populations healthy, but they also come with a hefty price tag. Nanotechnology may be able to develop vaccines faster, cheaper, and more effectively than existing methods would allow. Regarding health care, that's a game changer that could save countless lives for years to come.
The ability to create vaccines quickly would have a huge impact on public health. According to the World Health Organization, vaccines are one of the most successful public health interventions of all time. Vaccination programs have led to the eradication of smallpox, the near-eradication of polio, and the elimination of measles in many parts of the world.To date, more than 180 million people have been vaccinated, and there are no signs of the disease spreading in the U.S. or globally.
Research shows that investments in public health can yield healthier communities, lower life expectancy, and even longer lifespans. A 2015 survey of more than 600 global philanthropists found that long-term investments in health and development were well correlated with social-behavior change. Environmental charities have shown similar success, raising millions of dollars to fund disease-fighting, education, and nutrition programs for the world’s most vulnerable.
Vaccination campaigns may almost equally benefit developed and developing countries. Research shows that developing countries, where access to vaccines is more limited, have a lower infant mortality rate than developed countries. Even if autism rates increase, it is estimated that the limited access to affordable healthcare, lack of education around these issues, and political instability would have an equal or greater impact in the developing world. Vaccine development should not be a race to the bottom, but it is incredibly wasteful and unsustainable if we want to eradicate this disease once and for all.
Vaccines are incredibly expensive and even a small increase in supply (such as from a H1N1 swine flu vaccine) would provide massive savings for many in the developing world. The same logic can be applied to many other illnesses if there is a vaccine available to prevent them, like smallpox in 2013.
Poor environmental policies lead to malnutrition/starvation Many of the world’s poorest people live in poverty. According to the World Hunger Census, around 1.9 billion people worldwide are food-insecure, severely food-insecure, or Win-Win (least-difficult to fall back on food resources). Restrictions on movement, land use and edible food are major drivers of people living in poverty.
Read More Details: What is mrna technology?
0 Comments