Cold vaccine may be silver lining of Covid pandemic

A VACCINE for the common cold could be in development within five years, researchers believe as they launch a world-first project to track viruses using knowledge acquire during the pandemic.

Scientists at the Wellcome Sanger Institute will use genomic surveillance perfected over the last three years, to learn more about the most common viral infections. The hope is to give patients a single nose or throat swab and run tests to determine what infections they have and obtain detailed genetic information on them to shed light on how easily a virus spreads and how severe it may be. Experts also hope that this enhanced surveillance will help in the development of treatments and creation of vaccines.

Dr Ewan Harrison, head of the respiratory virus and microbiome initiative (RVI) at the institute, in Saffron Walden, Essex, said: “We hope … we can build on the work that’s been going on for Covid and supercharge efforts to understand these viruses [and] develop new treatments and vaccines.”