Universal Coronavirus Vaccines Possible, But Could Take Years or Even Decades

One of the factors that make the global coronavirus pandemic a protracted public health concern is the emergence of COVID-19 mutations - and a one-stop-shop vaccine sounds like a perfectly good idea.

The risk with these mutations is that some render existing vaccines useless or at least reduce their efficacy. If researchers continue to work on vaccines every time a new strain emerges, it would be a costly - and deadly - cat and mouse chase. With the odds of a new pandemic emerging in the future, it is in humanity's best interest to make sure we cut down the numbers of the current ones with universal coronavirus vaccines.

As noted in an article in the NPJ Vaccines journal, for "Universal coronavirus vaccines: the time to start is now."

(Photo: Photo by Vipin Kumar/Hindustan Times via Getty Images)
GURUGRAM, INDIA JUNE 29: Students undertaking international travel for education, up to 31st August 2021, get vaccinated for their second dose (after 28 days only), at Poly Clinic, Sector 31, on June 29, 2021, in Gurugram, India.

ALSO READ: Do's and Don'ts After Receiving COVID-19 Vaccine

The Hunt for Universal Coronavirus Vaccines

Writing for the LabX media group's professional publication The Scientist, Diana Kwon explains four families of coronaviruses; only two families - the alpha and beta - hosts the seven coronavirus strains that have been known to infect humans. In the alpha family, we have the 229E and NL63 that cause common colds, while the beta family contains the more dangerous ones. Aside from two viruses, OC43 and HKU1, that also cause colds, three of the viruses in this family lead to worse diseases, MERS-Cov, SARS-CoV1, and recently, the COVID-19 causing SARS-CoV-2.

Ideally, an "ultimate universal vaccine" would inoculate humans against all coronaviruses. However, these viruses vary widely in terms of their physiological structures that make a one-stop-shop vaccine virtually impossible. It led researchers, however, to focus on specific families of coronaviruses in an attempt to wipe them off.

One such effort to show the potential of vaccines against other types of coronaviruses is a recent paper on the biological pre-print server bioaRxiv led by researchers from Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois. The June 2021 paper presents evidence that SARS coronavirus vaccines protect against different coronaviruses. Particularly, those administered for SARS-CoV-2 could also trigger immune responses against SARS-CoV-1 and OC43.

Previous Attempts at Creating Generalized Vaccines

While the concerted effort of the world's medical institutions, both private and public, might have given us vaccines against COVID-19 a little over a year since it began spreading like a pandemic, having universal coronavirus vaccines might be a larger task than initially thought.

Looking back, influenza vaccines trace their origins in the 1930s, with the US implementing nationwide campaigns against the disease in the middle of the next decade. Several decades later, researchers develop new versions of influenza vaccines, usually twice a year, to keep up with the continuously emerging strains of the virus.

Up until now, there remains no universal vaccine for influenza, although other efforts in the same field have already started their late-stage clinical trials. Like the problem with the SARS-CoV-2 and its mutations, the influenza virus family also rapidly mutate - although researchers say that the COVID-19 virus mutates a lot slower than those of influenza.