Sci-tech
10:32 09.02.2020(updated 10:51 on 09.02.2020) Short url
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Several teams around the world are working to find a vaccine against the coronavirus that is rife in China and beyond. A process that will not be quick, but necessary, explained a researcher to Sputnik.
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Developing a coronavirus vaccine will take time, but it will be necessary to cope with future epidemics, said Elizabeth McGraw, professor at the University of Pennsylvania and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics.
“It is unlikely to be accessible during the current epidemic, because its development could require a few years, in the best of cases, but it will be practical to have it available in case of re-emergence of the virus”, a- she said in an interview with Sputnik.
“Even if the vaccine does not currently exist, we have the one against SARS [syndrome respiratoire aigu sévère, ndlr] which could provide a certain level of protection against the new coronavirus, ”she added.
She said he had been identified and that the development of the vaccine was underway.
Lower mortality rate
Referring to the peculiarities of the epidemic, Elizabeth McGraw said that the virus “was distinguished by a lower mortality rate than its predecessors of the same family, but had infected a higher number of people”.
She said “the coming weeks would show whether the infection would start to spread outside of China.”
“At present, it seems that only a few cases of secondary infection have been recorded [en dehors de la Chine, ndlr], mainly through good surveillance and quarantine measures around the world, ”she added.
Over 800 dead
Governments, universities, and pharmaceutical companies have launched a race against the clock to develop a vaccine against this new coronavirus, a process that can take several months.
The Chinese virus, which appeared in a market in Wuhan in central China in December, has already killed more than 800 people. The result thus exceeds that of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) which had killed 774 people worldwide in 2002-2003.
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