Menristek Reveals Research Obstacles for Corona Vaccine

JAMBIDAILY JAKARTA – Minister of Research and Technology (Menristek) Bambang Brodjonegoro said the development of the corona virus vaccine faces challenges in the form of disease complexity.

“It turns out there are also types of diseases that until today there is no vaccine, then there are types of diseases that have different vaccines in each country or different every time,” Bambang, who also serves as the Head of the National Research and Innovation Agency, quoted Antara on Wednesday (27) / 5).

Bambang said what vaccine researchers in various countries could not yet find or agree with was the biological character of the corona virus that causes Covid-19.

Efforts to recognize the biological character of the virus are still being carried out by researchers in the world, especially through the identification of the genome sequences (whole genome sequencing) of the SARS-CoV-2 virus circulating in the world.

“Will the Covid-19 vaccine have a character such as polio, for example, or more like dengue fever or like a flu vaccine or like pneumococcal, or what,” said Bambang.

Bambang said if you look at the character of vaccines that already exist in the world for various types of diseases, it can be seen that one type of vaccine can only be used for one type of disease, such as the polio vaccine, diphtheria vaccine and hepatitis vaccine.

There is a vaccine that every two years must be modified or must be reviewed because the virus has changed or mutated, namely the influenza vaccine.

Regular review of influenza vaccine is a prerequisite to ensure effectiveness of the vaccine.

“The flu vaccine given this year, for example, could be different from 2 years later,” he said.

At a higher level of complexity, there are vaccines that must be made to cover four different types of serotypes but must be with the same antibodies, namely dengue vaccine.

In other cases, there are vaccines that are only suitable for certain regions. So, a vaccine that is suitable for use in area A may not necessarily be effective in area B, even if the vaccine is the same type, for example a vaccine for pneumococcus.

“Actually, the challenge for vaccine researchers around the world is the first, whether they can find a vaccine, the second if they can find whether it is found only for certain strains of viruses or certain types of viruses or can all types of Covid-19 viruses circulate,” he said.

If later there are other countries that first find a vaccine before Indonesia, then it must be examined comprehensively to find out whether the vaccine is effective for Indonesia. (antara/DAL)/cnnindonesia.com

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