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Special Issue "Advances in Vaccinal Control of COVID-19"

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A special issue of Vaccines (ISSN 2076-393X).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2023) | Viewed by 13235

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Special Issue Editor

Dr. Arijit Chakravarty

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Fractal Therapeutics Inc., Cambridge, MA, USA
Interests: COVID-19; drug discovery; public health; epidemiology; viral evolution

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Vaccine deployment for SARS-CoV-2, the pathogen responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic, represented an extraordinary feat of biomedical innovation. Multiple vaccines have been developed, and 12 billion doses administered worldwide. However, despite this herculean effort, the pandemic continues to rage. Vaccinal (and natural) immunity wane quickly for SARS-CoV-2, making herd immunity infeasible. High levels of ongoing viral transmission and rapid viral evolution have led to repeated waves of disease, posing the risk of the emergence of more virulent variants of SARS-CoV-2. Thus, effective vaccines—capable of suppressing transmission and robust to viral evolution—remain an unmet need. Much work also remains to be carried out to find optimal vaccination strategies that are equitable and effective at suppressing disease spread.

This Special Issue will focus on novel research reports, reviews, and methodologies examining current and novel vaccines and vaccination strategies, from a biomedical research or public health perspective. Studies may include (but are not limited to): model-based analyses of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine performance or control strategies (e.g., using pharmacokinetic, epidemiological or evolutionary modeling), studies characterizing determinants of vaccine performance (e.g., immunological correlates, mucosal response), immunoinformatics or in silico studies for vaccine design, and preclinical/clinical studies characterizing vaccines (e.g., in vitro assays, immunogenicity or efficacy studies) currently in development.

Dr. Arijit Chakravarty
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Vaccines is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2
vaccines
immunology
epidemiology
vaccine development
viral evolution
public health
pandemic

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Open AccessArticle

Vaccines Alone Cannot Slow the Evolution of SARS-CoV-2

Diane Joseph-McCarthy

and

Arijit Chakravarty

Vaccines 2023, 11(4), 853; https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines11040853 - 16 Apr 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 8237

Abstract

The rapid emergence of immune-evading viral variants of SARS-CoV-2 calls into question the practicality of a vaccine-only public-health strategy for managing the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. It has been suggested that widespread vaccination is necessary to prevent the emergence of future immune-evading mutants. Here, we examined that proposition using stochastic computational models of viral transmission and mutation. Specifically, we looked at the likelihood of emergence of immune escape variants requiring multiple mutations and the impact of vaccination on this process. Our results suggest that the transmission rate of intermediate SARS-CoV-2 mutants will impact the rate at which novel immune-evading variants appear. While vaccination can lower the rate at which new variants appear, other interventions that reduce transmission can also have the same effect. Crucially, relying solely on widespread and repeated vaccination (vaccinating the entire population multiple times a year) is not sufficient to prevent the emergence of novel immune-evading strains, if transmission rates remain high within the population. Thus, vaccines alone are incapable of slowing the pace of evolution of immune evasion, and vaccinal protection against severe and fatal outcomes for COVID-19 patients is therefore not assured. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Vaccinal Control of COVID-19)

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Open AccessArticle

Heterogeneity in Vaccinal Immunity to SARS-CoV-2 Can Be Addressed by a Personalized Booster Strategy

Madison Stoddard

Lin Yuan

Sharanya Sarkar

Shruthi Mangalaganesh

and

Vaccines 2023, 11(4), 806; https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines11040806 - 06 Apr 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 3219

Abstract

SARS-CoV-2 vaccinations were initially shown to substantially reduce risk of severe disease and death. However, pharmacokinetic (PK) waning and rapid viral evolution degrade neutralizing antibody (nAb) binding titers, causing loss of vaccinal protection. Additionally, there is inter-individual heterogeneity in the strength and durability of the vaccinal nAb response. Here, we propose a personalized booster strategy as a potential solution to this problem. Our model-based approach incorporates inter-individual heterogeneity in nAb response to primary SARS-CoV-2 vaccination into a pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic (PK/PD) model to project population-level heterogeneity in vaccinal protection. We further examine the impact of evolutionary immune evasion on vaccinal protection over time based on variant fold reduction in nAb potency. Our findings suggest viral evolution will decrease the effectiveness of vaccinal protection against severe disease, especially for individuals with a less durable immune response. More frequent boosting may restore vaccinal protection for individuals with a weaker immune response. Our analysis shows that the ECLIA RBD binding assay strongly predicts neutralization of sequence-matched pseudoviruses. This may be a useful tool for rapidly assessing individual immune protection. Our work suggests vaccinal protection against severe disease is not assured and identifies a potential path forward for reducing risk to immunologically vulnerable individuals. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Vaccinal Control of COVID-19)

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Open AccessBrief Report

Effectiveness of the Air-Filled Technique to Reduce the Dead Space in Syringes and Needles during ChAdox1-n CoV Vaccine Administration

Naphatthorn Prueksaanantakal

Uraporn Phumisantiphong

and

Thananda Trakarnvanich

Vaccines 2023, 11(4), 741; https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines11040741 - 27 Mar 2023

Viewed by 1521

Abstract

In the current study, we calculated the vaccine volume and amount of dead space in a syringe and needle during ChAdox1-n CoV vaccine administration using the air-filled technique. The aim is to reduce the dead space in syringes and needles in order to administer up to 12 doses per vial. The hypothetical situation uses a vial with a similar size as the ChAdox1-n CoV vial. We used distilled water (6.5 mL) to fill the same volume as five vials of ChAdox1-n CoV. When 0.48 mL of distilled water is drawn according to the number on the side of the barrel, an additional 0.10 mL of air can be used in the dead space of the distilled water in the syringe and needle for 60 doses, which can be divided into an average of 0.5 mL per dose. ChAdox1-n CoV was administered using a 1-mL syringe and 25G needle into 12 doses using this air-filled technique. The volume of the recipient vaccine will increase by 20% and save on the budget for low dead space syringes (LDS). Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Vaccinal Control of COVID-19)

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