Creating a vaccine capable of preventing the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 will take many months — if not a year or more. These are the steps involved.
Nothing can stop a global outbreak in its tracks better than a vaccine. Unfortunately, creating a vaccine capable of preventing the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 will probably take at least a year to 18 months, health officials say.
• Macrophages engulf and then eat pathogens or cells that are dead or damaged. They leave behind identifying fragments of the invading microbes. These fragments are called antigens. • Attenuated vaccines, like those for chickenpox and measles, use a live virus or bacteria that has been intentionally weakened so that it can’t cause serious disease in a healthy immune system.
Both of these strategies take some time, and scientists worry that if they use them on novel viruses, they may not behave the way researchers predict, said, who runs the clinical trial unit at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center’s Center for Virology and Vaccine Research. For example, a vaccine based on the virus’ genome RNA can be made quickly, in perhaps a month or two, but it may be harder to manufacture in giant quantities.
The big sticking point is often the Phase 3 trial. In an epidemic, many study volunteers may not want to risk getting a placebo instead of the vaccine, Stephenson said. “I would like us to see it work in the majority of people,” he said, but “if it worked in 50%, 50% is a big improvement over 0%.”Definitely not. The labs that create a successful vaccine probably won’t be the ones that are able to scale up — they’ll need a dedicated manufacturer for that part. And many companies may be wary of investing the resources it takes to manufacture a new vaccine when the epidemic could end before there’s a chance to bring it to market, Weiner said.
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