COVID-19 infection and ginseng: Predictive influenza virus strains and non-predictive COVID-19 vaccine strains

Vaccines help protect people from infections. However, Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) vaccinees often still become infected with COVID-19 variants (breakthrough infections) and may go on to suffer from long COVID symptoms due to short-lasting immunity and less-effective protection provided by available vaccines. Moreover, the current COVID-19 vaccines do not prevent viral transmission and ward off only about 15% of breakthrough infections. To prepare more effective vaccines, it is essential to predict the viral strains that will be circulating based on available epidemiological data. The World Health Organization recommends in advance which influenza strains are expected to be prevalent during influenza season to guide the production of influenza vaccines by pharmaceutical companies. However, future emerging COVID-19 strain(s) have not been possible to predict since no sound epidemiological information has been established. Thus, for more effective protection, immune stimulators alone or in combination with vaccines would be preferable to protect people from COVID-19 infection. One of those remedies would be ginseng, which has been used for potentiating immunity in the past.