Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Today we're going to discuss not directly COVID-19 issues as we do, but the larger issue of vaccines themselves because it's very clear that vaccines will be our first line of defense against the pandemic and whatever form it takes later on. We have with us Professor Satyajit Rattu discuss some of the complex issues of science which vaccines really lead us to. Satyajit, we all talk about vaccines as if we understand it, but as you've explained to us immune systems are complex and so are vaccines. So can you tell us that what differentiates the vaccines that we know? Of course the pandemic has introduced us to COVID vaccines of different kinds, but what are the different kinds of vaccines and if we want to go to a universal vaccine and we'll come to that later. How does it differentiate itself from the various vaccines that we have seen, whether it's COVID or it is for flu, influenza, polio and this holy grail if we may say so of the universal vaccine which you don't seem to have yet done for anything else. Coming to first the vaccines themselves, what are the different kinds of vaccines we have seen during the pandemic, assuming these are the generic vaccine technologies which are available for others, other diseases, other infections too. So let's first look at the vaccines that we've been reading about for COVID-19 as you point out. So we've discussed how the virus causes infection. Virus particles land in our throat, sink through the fluid, stick to the surfaces of cells through a very specific sticking of the viral spike protein and the ACE2 protein on the surface of cells. So it's very clear that if we can prevent the spike protein from sticking to the ACE protein, we will prevent the virus from sticking to cells and therefore everything downstream of that will be prevented. In effect, we will have prevented infection. In order to do that, what pretty much all the COVID-19 vaccines do that are currently available, they take the portion of the spike protein called the receptor-binding domain, meaning that part of the spike protein which sticks to ACE2 protein and one way or another, they formulate it into a vaccine so that the body makes antibodies that stick to spike protein. So then if there are antibodies circulating against spike protein, there are antibodies in the fluids, in the throat and in the respiratory tubes. So when the virus particle comes in and lands, antibodies will quote the appropriate part of the spike protein. Spike protein cannot stick to cells. So basically, you've dealt with the problem right at the root. This is the design. All the technologies that we are dealing with, whether we are dealing with the mRNA or the adenoviral vaccines or we are dealing with the protein or the inactivated virus vaccines, all of these are simply differing in how to show the protein to the immune system and to get the immune system to make antibodies. But the core of the idea is to get the immune system to make these blocking, covering sort of ducking antibodies that will prevent this sticking. The difficulty is really when virus variants get selected that, for example, stick to the ACE2 protein even more efficiently, which is what we have seen with the Alpha variant, the Delta variant, the Omicron variant and so on and so forth. Now, let's all keep in mind that the virus is virus variation is emerging because we have done physical distancing. So more transmissible versions are emerging. One way of making it more transmissible is for changes in the spike protein to allow the spike protein to stick even better, to stick even harder. A byproduct of that is that because the shape has changed a little bit, the antibodies against earlier versions no longer stick to the new version. If the antibodies against the earlier versions no longer stick to the new versions, they are not as good at protection. So what's our response? Our response is very straightforward. Let's now make an Omicron specific vaccine, which is what we've been seeing in the newspapers will be done. So a straightforward tactic that has been adopted by vaccine makers against many other diseases is to say, okay, how many variations are there yet? If there are three variations, five variations, let's take all of those, let's mix all those versions of this target together and let's make a multivalent vaccine. We have examples of this. Our polio vaccines, our triple drops frequently come as trivalent vaccines with three different versions of the virus. For a bacterial vaccine like pneumococcal vaccine against pneumococcal pneumonia, we started out with tetravalent, then we went to seven valent, then we went to 10 or 12 and 14 valent vaccines. That means 14 different strains of the pneumococcal there of the target shade. So you are giving the immune system 14 different versions to make 14 different kinds of antibodies. Essentially. And the immune system seems to do a reasonably good job. Here is the major limitation with that approach. That approach works if you think you actually have the entire list of variations, if you don't, if you're looking at another Omicron or Phi or Psi or Omega emerging, then as in when the new strains emerge, you are going to have to scramble and put together a new vaccine. This is actually what happens in the every winter for instance, we get this version vaccine being again released in the market, that it seems to be a kind of weapons versus shield race, that the more weapons the virus changes, produces new kinds of weapons quote unquote, we have to produce new kind of shields. And this is the flu race that every year we seem to WHO seems to release flu vaccines, which circulated in the southern hemisphere for the northern hemisphere, we get a sort of lead time because you can see what's happening in the other part of the world. Is that what is the how the sort of weapons to shield race goes on? Yeah, there's a small difference there, which is interesting. And that small difference is for the pneumonia bacteria, for example, we make this 14, 12, 15 valent vaccine because there are that many different variations stably in circulation at the same time. So you make this combination multivalent vaccine and you sell it and that's what you sell year after year. For flu what happens is because many all of us are immune to some degree against a prevailing strain of influenza. And because influenza is mutable, is quite rapidly changeable, it changes and throws up a new strain, which becomes the prevalent strain. So rather than 15 different strains circulating every couple of years, there is a new dominant strain of flu. So identifying it or at least guessing what it might be, making a just one valent vaccine against that is good enough. So depending on disease dynamics, either a stable multivalent vaccine, trivalent vaccine for polio or 10, 12, 14 valent vaccine for pneumonia or a changing version of the vaccine as for influenza, it has been how we approach this problem historically. Now the question, of course we can do what we are doing for either influenza or for pneumococcus that we can provide multivalent or a rapidly changing vaccine, every strain new vaccine and make that process faster. Does do we and particularly guys like you who sit in the lab have a solution for us that will give us quote unquote the holy grail as I keep on saying the of immunology that we can make a universal vaccine? What prevents you guys from making an universal vaccine the current state of knowledge? So my colleague immunologist, my fellow immunologists will berate me as a pessimist and as a naysayer because many of them are not only optimistic about the idea of the universal vaccine that you point to but are actively working on it for COVID and related Vita coronavirus infections. Here is the, so let me explain the problem. The problem is as follows. We have currently both the strategies that we discussed being designed for future COVID vaccines. There are research groups that are making multivalent vaccines with multiple strain versions of spike protein. There are also research groups that are beginning to link the community surveys identifying emerging new strains and linking those community surveys to the vaccine pipeline to develop new generation, new seasonal vaccines if you will. Both of those are being done. In addition, this notion, this what I consider a fanciful notion at the moment of the universal vaccine is being discussed and there are two different ways in which it is being approached. One is to say, hey, what are you saying? You're saying that the spike protein binds to the S2 protein. Now, what you're pointing out is that as it changes to bind better and better, it changes shape. So the antibodies generated by last year's strain no longer bind to this changed version of the spike protein. But surely because the spike protein is binding to the S2 protein all the time, there must be some common preserved features of that binding which are present on the spike protein. Can we identify those common conserved structural features and just make antibodies against those features? Then the virus has no way, it might change, but because the antibodies are being made against a sort of core stripped down essential version of the protein, of the viral protein, the antibodies will bind to any viral, any protein version of that virus which binds to the S2 target and therefore will always work. This has been tried for 30 years for HIV vaccine design. It has been tried for a similar 20-25 year period for influenza vaccine design and at the moment it's a little bit like energy from fusion reactions. We are getting closer and closer and closer but we are not quite there and if we don't as yet have the science, the structural understanding sufficiently nuanced then we are not quite going to manage the fact. I'm going to take a step back Satish. I'm going to take a step back. I'm going to take a step back on this for our audience, our viewers and ask you that essentially that shape of the spike protein and in fact the protein shape is the problem. How to predict a protein shape from what we know about the composition of the proteins that make the spike so to say that the folding, the shape it takes, exact shape it takes is a much more difficult exercise to predict with our state of knowledge. Would that be the problem? That is the problem but the vaccine problem is actually a compounded version of the problem you point out. The compounded version is here is a shape that binds to this complementary shape on the set. Now there are many versions of this shape. All of them bind to this. What is the common shape component amongst all these shapes that allows binding to this and can we purely generate antibodies against that common shape component? So there is two ways of looking at it. I'm asking purely from common sense since I fortunately do not have to get into this. That two ways of looking at it, look at all possible shapes and see what is conserved. Now that is the what would be called the cannon shot scatter gun problem. We find n number of shapes and say okay all these shapes that we have found say 10,000 of them, 5,000 of them and these are conserved. That's one way of looking at it. Other ways to see what is morphologically necessary for a spike from doing what it does and then see that therefore what it that shape is and that second as well as the first, both approaches are being tried or it is really first approaches to broad.  Both approaches are being tried. The first is the brute force computational approach. The second is the knowledge driven computational approach and both of these have been are being tried and as I said they're being tried for HIV, they're being tried for influenza, they're being tried for COVID. As yet there isn't sufficiently dramatic success for us to feel optimistic about such a vaccine coming out in the next six months or a year. Whether we will get there or not is a little bit like as I said fusion energy. For viewers, this in fact if we look at as a computational problem, we are looking at really a computational problem which does not get easily solved by our current state of computations and the machinery which does the computations. If of course we get to quantum computers, maybe we'll have a much easier solution for people who deal with the immune system and complexities of the protein folding exercise we talked about. So we have two hard problems and maybe we can marry them together if we have a solution for either. Yes, except that there is yet another problem that is emerging even as we are struggling with the core problems that you describe and that is all of us are getting exposed to or vaccinated against current versions of the strain. Which means that our immune systems have prior experience of a certain kind. Does that now skew the response of the immune system such that even when we come up against this ideal core universal vaccine, our immune systems will recalcitrantly say no, I have the old version of response and that's what I'm going to make more of is yet another problem and that problem has been dragged by our colleagues in the Global North into Christian theology and is called the original antigenic sin problem. Mercifully the rest of us outside the Christian world don't need to deal with ideas of original sin but it's a problem nonetheless. You are saying that even if we solve this problem, you guys will or gals will find some more problems for us to tackle science will still have problems. What I'm saying is that a solution under ideal circumstances much like the physicist's version of the cow may not correlate well enough to the real life messiness to be an actual practical solution and this is why there is a very large number of difficulties with the reasonable rational and worthwhile idea of a universal vaccine. So listening to Satyajit, let's accept this premise. I think this is where he's coming from and that's where his pessimism that he shared with us right in the beginning that we have, yes, we have a theoretical possibility of a universal vaccine but with the state of knowledge that we have and with the continuously changing equilibrium between the virus in our immune system such a universal vaccine itself may not be the optimal answer to the problems of infection, to the problems of future epidemics or set of epidemics shall be said. Satyajit, really good for you to try and explain a rather difficult exercise for us to comprehend what a virus is, what the immune system is and how do they fight each other and the complexities of evolution of both. I think this is a really a difficult exercise and we will trouble you to explain to us such complexities which are not dealing with public health and epidemiology which we have been dealing with till now but the future of science itself. This is all the time we have for news click today do keep watching us and we'll continue with Professor Satyajit Rath to focus on some of these areas which may be of larger interest not of immediate interest but nevertheless which we should engage with.


I will not hesitate to tell you this that vaka indi ichi dema nava filwa nava filwa, the man has felt I know there are some people that are still talking to say no, whatever he promised it has just been only one year he has got whatever, whatever, whatever come on guys, let's be real let's be real, one year is a long time to at least fix something to at least fix something mu di wanie, at least vaka indi ichi dema nga nabachitaku fixi, fimo fimo you would have fixed at least something that we can be looking at but what has he fixed? what has he fixed? we are now getting to almost one year six months that's what we are getting so nava e kala, the time that vaka indi ichi dema has stayed is long enough for him to have changed a number of things vaka indi ichi dema doesn't give us hope he doesn't there is no hope mu di vaka indi ichi dema even you mu eva re kwa tini luishwa chimpuena some of you are holding on to present vaka indi ichi dema he mu eva varoidi varoidi muleya nabambia wa shala you are holding on to vaka indi ichi dema nga luishwa chimpuena like a tick holding on to a dead dog that's there is no hope there is no hope so the only way according to me as Jirifata in my opinion, the public lawyer I'm saying vaka indi ichi dema just resign from vaka indi ichi dema just resign because we can't wait for 2026 2026 2026 anu wuchushi na wuchila na wuchila kule wuchushi there is suffering in Zambia whoever can say whatever there is suffering you can talk about statistics you can talk about what you can bring all the lies of vaka indi ichi dema the reality is that people are suffering in Zambia people are suffering and because people are suffering I'm really saying vaka indi ichi dema zwa vaka indi ichi dema kamuia can we have somebody else to come in can we have somebody else to come in we can't go on like this we want we to alafwa aga indi ichi dema la dwi paya there is no hope tapari okotu leia tapadi tapadi don't be cheated you people don't be cheated that you no no no think tapari okotu leia we are going nowhere we are going nowhere I can run you through I can run you through me I don't just make statements anyhow I back my statements when vaka indi ichi dema was in opposition he had the well-aglanded plan the 10 points plan give me that 10 point plan and show me one thing that vaka indi ichi dema has done in one year at least he would have done something at least he would have done something imo mwa mwa mwa re-suppoto vaka indi ichi dema here dewa mulembe mulembe start writing I'm even feeling like opening a phone line so that you can call and tell me to say this is what he has done I will do it maybe tomorrow I will introduce four names so that you can call and tell me right now dewa mwa mwa re-suppoto vaka indi ichi dema mulembe pofimo apati this is what vaka indi ichi dema has done mulembe pofimo I'm I'm mwa mwa mwa mwa mwa mwa at free education you are now let me tell you that free education you are talking about is 200 kuacha it's 200 kuacha toa re-pila vaka indi ichi dema mwa fumiyako fukuri free education in mulembe at free education is 200 kuacha din miweta uri pili ravana maybe you might not be paying for children some of us will pay for children we have people that are going to different schools so we know it's basically 200 kuacha 200 kuacha now if you look at the 200 kuacha compare to the misery that present daka indi ichi dema what is 200 kuacha what is 200 kuacha I would rather I would rather have fuel at 17 kuacha where Ed Galungu left it Ed Galungu left fuel at 17 kuacha I would rather have fuel at 17 kuacha and then paying that 200 kuacha in schools I would rather do that than to have your free education in mulembe 200 kuacha and yet I am paying more on fuel I am spending more on fuel I would rather pay 200 kuacha for my children and my nieces and my nephews to go to school than to pay 200 kuacha sakari avunga I would rather pay 200 kuacha than to have this long load shedding that is coming that we are being subjected to I would rather pay 200 kuacha and be rest assured that when my mother goes to the hospital to the hospital she will find medicine I would rather pay 200 kuacha if at least with that 200 kuacha jobs can be there I would rather pay 200 kuacha if my money is in the pockets of the people so you can't tell me about that 200 kuacha it's nothing it's nothing it doesn't mean anything from there let me tell you right now as we are talking as we are talking that money has not gone to schools schools are being inconvenienced by that 200 kuacha right now we have opened the schools schools have not received their grants children are going to school children are going to school but the schools have not received their grants what is happening to you nama minister kuminsu of education what is happening nama HHVN does he even know the grants are not going to schools that 200 kuacha has brought problems for schools they have brought problems and they are failing to give quality education and you see what HHVN has done now HHVN bantua nikane but PF they allowed people to progress from grade 7 to grade 9 now because HHVN wants to reduce the number of children in schools if they have reintroduced this exam where people are going to be failing now but PF wanted people to progress bale sanbirila ko but they have introduced now this so that our HVN no matter where pona where will they go where will they go so we are going to have so many so many children out there our shasanbirila at least for PF they were allowing people to progress so many exams are being introduced it is to reduce on the numbers so I would rather they pay 200 kuacha our HVN progress I know yes some of them may not do very well may not do very well at the end of the day but at least they would be enlightened they will know something than them being outside I would rather have somebody in school outside school because the school he has failed to progress to the next grade it is unacceptable so fishi if you want to know if you want to know what you have done tell me what you have done don't tell me what you have done tell me what you have done tell me what you have done what you have done pay your rentals tell me what you have done tell me what you have done tell me what you have done the issues of rentals now is not an issue tell me what you have done because Ed Galungu created a facility where some of us were able to make money and sort out some of these problems actually if anything we will never pray singers you pray singers are the ones who are suffering you are suffering more because you were thinking that haka hindi ichirema will come and help you unfortunately nothing has happened so anyway I am saying haka hindi ichirema must go that's what I am saying haka hindi ichirema must go he must resign he must resign and I am calling upon you Zambians to start calling for haka hindi ichirema to resign he must resign he must resign he must resign he must resign he must resign he must resign so that haka hindi ichirema will come and help you nothing will happen you are suffering haka hindi ichirema must go we will never feed we will never feed on haka hindi ichirema's lies we will never he must resign and we must start calling for it you don't fear it's democratic just as it is democratic to endorse him to say we want haka hindi ichirema it is also democratic to say no we don't want him just as it is democratic to endorse somebody it is also democratic to disappoint somebody it is also democratic to cast a vote of no confidence it is a democratic right it is don't fear don't fear haka hindi ichirema must go he must resign it is democratic and we must amplify the voices of calling for haka hindi ichirema to resign why must he resign why haka hindi ichirema must resign number one in terms of umitengo shafi into the prices of commodities haka hindi ichirema has messed it up he has messed up the commodity prices careful of sangile this is not how he found things you can say no no no he just came in look if haka hindi ichirema was capable if he was not inefficient he would have maintained the status quo of things he would have maintained but since he came in everything has gone up gone up gone up so how better is he from Edgar Lungu how better is he if when he came in he found millimio at 130 kwacha today and by the way this is not a prophecy wunga wala amboku shota millimio prices is going to even increase because we will have a shortage of millimio we will have a shortage of millimio wunga wala amboku shota why ishresa wa ilafi awawa nani kani iroba ishreba upnd mufwe kisha wu noguno san iroba ishreba upnd bahari sangira matawa afarae they found stocks of mills when they came in from the farming season of 2019 2019 2020 when they came in they started selling wunga they have been exporting they have been exporting and I'm challenging afarae to come in and tell us what are the stocks kunan kani kwefarae when they tell us what are the stocks what are the stocks wunga iroba media afarae and ask them what is the stock what stock do they have because these people have been selling millimio they have been exporting benawa ishreba fio kushtisha and as it is we will have a shortage of maize and when we have a shortage of maize it means that the millimio prices will increase millimio prices will increase iripari 200 kwacha it is going to increase even to be more there is a worry because we don't have stock we don't have enough stock we don't have enough stock so be careful so the point is afarae afarae it is going to increase talk about cooking oil how much it was cooking oil when Ed Galung was living cooking oil when Ed Galung was living was between 8 and 220 it was going to increase 200 kwacha this is it 200 kwacha so if we are into nothing we have sugar but Ed Galung was living sugar sugar is almost 50 kwacha everything has gone up so if things have gone up how can you say waka hrema is better than walung and fine he has just been in power for one year now let's turn it around do you think it is fair that since waka hrema came in within this year things have gone so high where we have fuel that he found at almost 17 kwacha it is now at 28 kwacha do you think it is fair only one year fuel at 17 kwacha do you think that is normal for you it is just one year it is just one year your gift changala will learn that 190 people who are in different areas they will tell you kuchingala wunga wudina over 200 in other areas wunga wudina so you haven't seen the price tags where it is more than 200 you haven't seen the price tags where it is more than 200 so here this is what I am calling I am calling for him to go because first of all the price of commodities have gone high and if you are saying no waka hrema has only been in power for one year my response to you is do you think it is okay for waka hrema for the time that he has been there to increase prices of commodities to where they are today do you think it is okay it is not okay it shows incompetence let him resign let him resign


We are here on location at the 2018 Chicago Auto Show here in Chicago of course for Summit Automotive in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. You're new and used Jeep headquarters. We're checking out the all-new 2019 Jeep Cherokee. This is a trail-talk model. New for 2019, they've changed the headlights up quite a bit and the front end. As you notice it doesn't come to such a point anymore but still has the seven-slotted grille. They've changed the headlights around. They used to have the actual headlight down here and have the running lights up here and then the fog lights down there. Well they've changed the to the LED fog lights on the bottom here. LED running lights are up here and then you have your projector lamp headlamps right there. So they made the front end look a lot more appealing on these vehicles. Still get the red-tail hooks with the trail-talk package. They've added a new engine for 2019, a 2-liter 4-cylinder turbocharged motor which pumps out 270 horsepower. It's actually gonna have more foot-pound torque than the V6. So you still have the acceleration and everything of the V6 but it gets you better fuel economy on the highway. One thing that a lot of people won't notice is that they've added the capitalist fuel fill for 2019. They did not have that until the new body style here. As we come around to the back you'll see that they've redesigned the tail lamps and the back end a little bit too. It's a lot cleaner. The tail lamps are the kind of frosted LED looking and just looks a lot cleaner back here. Back-up sensors are right in the bumper there and the back-up camera is a little more hidden. This is a power game. Still got a lot of room back here. Factory subwoofer is a little bit more pronounced. You still get the full-size spare tire on the four-wheel drives as the sunshade in here as well and it's very spacious. Those seats do go down flat which we'll check out right now. They still are going with the Firestone Destination all-terrain tires. These are 245-65R 17s and the painted 17-inch rims. They haven't changed much on the interior. Back seats still have the latch child safety system and looks like they're fixed now. They used to be adjustable but now they're fixed. Someone's got that seat all the way back as the blind spot monitoring. Seats are still very similar to the old body style and from what I noticed is that the interior is very much the same. You still get the 7-inch TFT display. Still the 8.4 touchscreen radio although they've got the new 4C radio in these which are Android Auto and Apple CarPlay compatible. You still have your home link buttons, SLS buttons. This one does have the power vista roof or they call it the command view roof now. Everything's very similar to the 2018s and before on the interior which is nice for everybody who got very familiar with these vehicles. I've owned three of these Trailhawks and everything is exactly where it used to be but we'll just go around it one more time. Kind of give you a far away and look at the redesign here and a nice side profile here. And once again I just wanted to thank you for checking out the video. Hope you like it and remember to check out more of our videos at youtube.com slash Summit Auto. Thanks again for checking it out. You want to learn more about this Jeep or any of our other Jeep products you can go to our website www.summitauto.com and we're looking forward to helping you out with the new Jeep Cherokee. We just got some in on a lot so go check us out at www.summitauto.com. Thanks again for checking out. If you want to subscribe to our channel in the second you'll notice a link to subscribe to our channel on your left. It links more inventory Jeep videos on your right and if you haven't been to our website a link to our website on the bottom click those checks out. We really look forward to helping you with the new all new 2019 Jeep Cherokee. Thanks again for checking it out.