Valery Charushin: the philosophy of our life will inevitably change

Director of the Postovsky Institute of Organic Synthesis of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, chairman of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, vice president of the Russian Academy of Sciences, academician Valery Charushin in an interview with Vestnik Kavkaza spoke about what should and should not be expected from a coronavirus vaccine.

“I would like people to know the difference between vaccines and drugs. Vaccination is a preventive measure, the introduction of a weakened virus into a healthy body to create an immune response, create antibodies, which, when a person is infected with a virus, will immediately fight against it,” he noted.

“The problem is that you cannot create a vaccine in a day. It must be very specific, which means that when the virus changes, another vaccine is needed. It also has limitations: it is very difficult to use it to help elderly, people with immune disorders or any chronic diseases that affect the immune system,” Valery Charushin stressed.

“A vaccine is no panacea for everything. When the spread of infection begins, in addition any vaccine, antiviral drugs are needed, which also cannot be developed in a few days, they require a long process. It is important to understand that even if 100 pharmaceutical companies will develop one drug, they will not be able to create it 100 times faster than the due date. This arsenal should be created in advance, scientific research in this area should be a priority, that is, we must forget about the interests of pharmaceutical companies and objectively evaluate what is more effective in treatment or complex therapy,” the academician said.

“Appropriate conclusions should be drawn from the lessons of this year, because no one is safe from the second wave, or from the third, or from other pathogenic infections. I think the philosophy of our life will inevitably change. Now we understand that a different scale of human values is taking shape. Yes, our health has always been at the forefront, we just did not realize that so many people could be at risk at the same time," he concluded.