Scientists in race against time to develop a vaccine to combat Covid-19
Scientists around the world are trying to develop a vaccine for the coronavirus, which has infected more than 81,000 people and spread to almost 40 countries in two months.
Researchers have been able to act quickly due to the open sharing of information by the Chinese authorities, in whose country the virus originated.
“The scientists in Wuhan had a virus sequence by the next week, which they shared with the international community, which was huge and really unprecedented,” said Dr Angela Rasmussen, a biologist at Columbia University in New York. “We’ve never had access to the data for an emerging virus that was completely unknown to us before. That sort of thing is instrumental in developing tests.”
The most publicised path to a vaccine for Covid-19 is the effort by US biotech company Moderna. Its team announced on Monday that it had shipped an experimental vaccine to US government researchers – six weeks after the disease was confirmed in Wuhan.
Although a positive first step, the Moderna vaccine is far from the end of the story. Initial trials of the mRNA-1273 vaccine could begin in April, but full safety testing will last more than a year.
Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said producing a vaccine within a year would be a record.
“You can’t do any better than that. If you go any faster, you’ll be cutting dangerous corners,” he said.
French drugmaker Sanofi said on Tuesday it will team up with a US agency to develop a vaccine.
Oslo-based Cepi has joined forces with partners including Moderna to accelerate the hunt for a coronavirus vaccine using new approaches. Some companies aim to have a vaccine within 12 to 18 months.
A previous success story of vaccination creation and distribution was pharmaceutical company Merck’s Ebola vaccine, Ervebo, which was used most recently in an outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The discovery was made possible by an unprecedented effort by a World Health Organisation road map for collaboration in which the African Vaccine Regulatory Forum, African governments, the European Medicines Agency and Merck worked together to guide the vaccine through regulatory processes.
“While we are far from finished in the Ebola fight, this milestone shows what can be done when we work together to address the most challenging diseases,” said Merck chief executive Kenneth C Frazier.
Medical teams in Japan and China are attempting an even more ambitious project – to find a cure for the disease.
The government is making “preparations so that clinical trials using HIV medication on the novel coronavirus can start as soon as possible,” government spokesman Yoshihide Suga said, but could not say how long it might take to approve a drug’s use.
In Shanghai’s Public Health Clinical Centre, doctors are using a patchwork of coronavirus treatments including antiviral medications, corticosteroids, blood plasma from recovered patients and traditional Chinese medicine, AFP reported.
Dr Rasmussen said another important element is correct testing. “One thing that would be really helpful is if we have some kind of prognostic test that not only would determine that you’re infected with a virus but what your outcome is likely to be,” she said.
“Then we could begin customising treatments. So if we can predict early on that this person is not going to get very sick we can have them self-quarantine and recover at home.
“But if we know early that this person is likely to get very sick, we can begin treating them early and maybe use a different treatment strategy that would hopefully mitigate the severity of their disease.”