Four years prior to the current coronavirus epidemic that is quickly becoming a worldwide pandemic, researchers in Israel began working on techniques to create vaccines. Their test virus was infectious bronchitis virus (IBV), a bronchial disease that affects poultry. As it happens, this avian coronavirus is very similar to the human coronavirus striking fear and suffering across the globe.
“Let’s call it pure luck,” said Dr. Chen Katz, MIGAL’s biotechnology group leader for MIGAL. “We decided to choose coronavirus as a model for our system just as a proof of concept for our technology.”
MIGAL— the Galilee Research Institute—switched gears when the current outbreak began. They started sequencing the DNA and realized the similarities between the viruses they had been working with and Covid-19 were striking. This gave them a tremendous head start in fighting the infectious disease and will likely yield a vaccine within weeks, Israeli Science and Technology Minister Ofir Akunis announced yesterday.
“Congratulations to MIGAL on this exciting breakthrough,” Akunis said. “I am confident there will be further rapid progress, enabling us to provide a needed response to the grave global COVID-19 threat.”
The research team wasn’t specifically working on a vaccine but rather a technique for producing and delivering future vaccines. It is orally administered and easily absorbed, making it an ideal method for quickly and safely administering it to the masses if necessary. The technique they’re using is nothing short of brilliant.
“The scientific framework for the vaccine is based on a new protein expression vector, which forms and secretes a chimeric soluble protein that delivers the viral antigen into mucosal tissues by self-activated endocytosis, causing the body to form antibodies against the virus,” Katz said.
Once the vaccine is created, it will go through a minimal 90-day test window to certify it safe for human use. As Ryan Saavedra at The Daily Wire noted, this can’t sit well with those in the BDS movement.
Online, pro-Israel voices quickly mocked those who support the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to destroy the state of Israel.
BDS this https://t.co/fmd0we8kPk
— Jonathan Schanzer (@JSchanzer) February 27, 2020
Vox: The Zionist Plot To Brainwash People Through Vaccines, Explained https://t.co/iferuw64Yd
— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) February 28, 2020
With Iran and other enemies of Israel reeling from the coronavirus, it would be ironic if their people are saved by a vaccine that comes from their sworn enemy. But when a pandemic supersedes political bickering, even one as old as the Middle East conflict.
