Corona virus : how long will it to develop a vaccine
Corona Virus vaccine: when we will have one?
While the official 12- to 18-month timeframe still stands, experimental Covid-19 inoculations for high-risk groups could be rolled out much earlier.
Time to get a COVID-19 vaccine to market is likely to be at least 18 months.
Potential treatments require testing and funding.
International organizations are helping to fund research.
COVID-19 is new and scientists understand little about how it behaves and spreads. The cost of creating a vaccine to protect people against the new coronavirus will run into billions of dollars and could take many months. Here are some of the reasons why.
Vaccines are complex to make
Technology is enabling new methods of exploring vaccine candidates for trial, but there are already a few tried and tested ways to make them.
In all of them, scientists try to stimulate the body’s immune system to combat invasive pathogens. That’s commonly done by creating something so similar to the pathogen that the body begins to create antibodies to fight off the real thing.
The most common way of doing this is to make what’s called attenuated vaccines – those that are made of weaker strains of the actual pathogen. Reared on animal cells outside of human bodies (some flu vaccines are cultured on chicken eggs), they are then extracted and injected in a single tiny dose.
Vaccines for measles and tuberculosis are created in this way.
THOUGH we can slow the spread of Covid-19, through confinement and other social distancing measures, and scientists are developing drugs to treat its symptoms, the only way to actually prevent people from catching Covid-19 is with a vaccine – and we don’t yet have one of those.
Nearly 80 companies and academic institutions are racing to produce one, and of those, five are already testing their vaccine candidates in people. The first of these to enter human trials – one produced by Boston-based biotech company Moderna – did so on 16 March.
This unprecedented speed is thanks in large part to early Chinese efforts to sequence the genetic material of Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. China shared that sequence in early January, allowing research groups around the world to grow the live virus and study how it invades human cells and makes people sick.
Her team at Oxford is part of a global effort to find a vaccine for coronavirus which has killed more than 100,000 people around the world, according to Johns Hopkins University. .
Professor Gilbert has said that human trials are set to take place within the next fortnight, and that she has been working seven days a week to get a vaccine rushed through.
While the official 12- to 18-month timeframe still stands, experimental Covid-19 inoculations for high-risk groups could be rolled out much earlier.
Time to get a COVID-19 vaccine to market is likely to be at least 18 months.
Potential treatments require testing and funding.
International organizations are helping to fund research.
COVID-19 is new and scientists understand little about how it behaves and spreads. The cost of creating a vaccine to protect people against the new coronavirus will run into billions of dollars and could take many months. Here are some of the reasons why.
Vaccines are complex to make
Technology is enabling new methods of exploring vaccine candidates for trial, but there are already a few tried and tested ways to make them.
In all of them, scientists try to stimulate the body’s immune system to combat invasive pathogens. That’s commonly done by creating something so similar to the pathogen that the body begins to create antibodies to fight off the real thing.
The most common way of doing this is to make what’s called attenuated vaccines – those that are made of weaker strains of the actual pathogen. Reared on animal cells outside of human bodies (some flu vaccines are cultured on chicken eggs), they are then extracted and injected in a single tiny dose.
Vaccines for measles and tuberculosis are created in this way.
THOUGH we can slow the spread of Covid-19, through confinement and other social distancing measures, and scientists are developing drugs to treat its symptoms, the only way to actually prevent people from catching Covid-19 is with a vaccine – and we don’t yet have one of those.
Nearly 80 companies and academic institutions are racing to produce one, and of those, five are already testing their vaccine candidates in people. The first of these to enter human trials – one produced by Boston-based biotech company Moderna – did so on 16 March.
This unprecedented speed is thanks in large part to early Chinese efforts to sequence the genetic material of Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. China shared that sequence in early January, allowing research groups around the world to grow the live virus and study how it invades human cells and makes people sick.
.
A vaccine for COVID-19 could be ready as soon as September, according to a professor from Oxford University. Sarah Gilbert is a professor of vaccinology and says that she is "80% confident" a COVID-19 vaccine being developed by her team will work.Her team at Oxford is part of a global effort to find a vaccine for coronavirus which has killed more than 100,000 people around the world, according to Johns Hopkins University. .
Professor Gilbert has said that human trials are set to take place within the next fortnight, and that she has been working seven days a week to get a vaccine rushed through.
Comments
Post a Comment