COVID-19: What’s in vaccines? It’s mostly water, says global vaccine alliance

COVID-19: What’s in vaccines? It’s mostly water, says global vaccine alliance

Vaccines contain "active ingredients". This usually refers to either "killed" (inactivated) whole virus, or components of a target virus (known as "attenuated" vaccine). There's a new vaccine type, called mRNA vaccines. But they have the same objective: give them through a shot in the arm (intramuscular) and trigger our body's immune response to antigens “” viruses, bacteria and other pathogens, or parts of them. To manufacture vaccines in a safe and effective way, and in order for them to work well, it's important that they also contain other key ingredients. These are also known as "excipients". With the current pandemic, the role of vaccines has come to the fore. We explore some numbers: Vaccine makers are struggling to keep up with an unprecedented demand “” experts estimate the world needs at least 10 billion COVID-19 vials as soon as possible. There are supply chain and raw material constraints that have posed global challenges. But let's not ignore man's capacity to fight back, when rowing in the same direction. Just barely 14 months after the SARS-CoV-2 genome was sequenced, 1 billion vaccine doses had already been produced/administered in 177 countries (actually in just 4 months after the vaccines were approved). That