For two years now, coronavirus infection has remained the main medical and social problem both in the world and in our country. The general meeting of the Russian Academy of Sciences, which is taking place these days in Moscow, is organized in an unusual format – it consists entirely of a scientific session dedicated to the COVID-19 pandemic.
– For two years the whole world has been living in a new reality, in a pandemic. More than 270 million cases worldwide, more than 5 million deaths. The experience of these two years has shown that only science is the force that can lead mankind out of a pandemic, – the head of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Alexander Sergeev, commented on the importance of the agenda of the meeting.
One of the lessons of the epidemic is that humanity will continue to face new infections. “The pandemic has shown that fundamental virology is one of the most important sciences in our time, and it needs to be given much more attention than is being paid now,” Sergeev said, stressing that the unprecedented rapid development of anti-ancillary vaccines, the emergence of new drugs and medical technologies have become possible only because the scientists had a groundwork that they were able to use.
“When such crises arise and science accepts them, this is a unique opportunity to show how important fundamental research is,” said Minister of Science and Education Valery Falkov.
At the same time, the “bottleneck” remains the interaction of scientists and business in order to bring scientific developments for wide practical application.
The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that there is an urgent need for affordable testing, and the speed of diagnostics is also important, ” said Anna Popova, head of Rospotrebnadzor. Now, in terms of testing, Russia ranks fourth in the world after Great Britain, India, and the United States. “Today, almost all the results of PCR and ELISA tests in Russia fall on a single platform created by the Central Research Institute of Epidemiology,” Popova said. The national register of current strains of coronavirus, created on the basis of the institute, in which several thousand samples have already been collected, makes it possible to study how the pathogen is changing.
Over the past two years, scientists have learned a lot about the new infection. But the coronavirus still presents many mysteries. The head of the FMBA, Veronika Skvortsova, spoke about a multicenter study that studied the effect of the virus on the human body. “COVID provokes and accelerates processes similar to the changes in the body that are characteristic of an aging organism,” said Skvortsova. “This is due to the fact that the infection provokes processes of chronic inflammation.” At the same time, there is also an encouraging moment – these changes can be reversible with the help of restorative treatment.
Most of the session was devoted to an analysis of the various treatments for COVID-19 and its consequences. At the same time, the speakers emphasized: prevention is important, and the main remedy is, of course, vaccination.
Scientists have learned a lot about the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus in two years, but it still presents many mysteries.
More than 8 billion doses of vaccines have already been used in the world. But due to the variability of the virus and the emergence of new strains – “delta”, and now “omicron” – scientists are faced with a new challenge. Vaccines based on the original Wuhan strain are less effective against delta and possibly omicron. “As a result of mutations, the virus has accumulated new properties, it has received an increase in contagiousness and also changes in antigenic terms: it cuts off the action of antibodies produced by vaccination,” said Deputy Director of the Gamaleya Center, RAS Corresponding Member Denis Logunov.
To protect against the changing virus, it is necessary to maintain the tension of the immune system; all the regulators of the world have gone along this path – repeated booster vaccinations. “But repeating vaccinations every three months is not advisable,” says Logunov. The Gamaleya Center believes that it is necessary to work in a different direction – to regularly update the vaccine for the current strain.
Aidar Ishmukhametov, head of the Chumakov Federal Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, agrees with his colleague. The scientific center is ready to present inactivated vaccines against COVID-19 based on the delta strain or a combination of new strains, as well as to make a combined influenza and coronavirus vaccine.
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