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Experts are hopeful that a vaccine against the SARS-CoV-2 virus will become available sooner rather than later.
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For the most up-to-date news and information about the coronavirus pandemic, visit the WHO website.
Will there be a coronavirus vaccine? Will US company Moderna lead the way? Experts are hopeful that we’ll see a coronavirus vaccine sooner rather than later, but there’s no cure yet for the virus that causes COVID-19 and vaccines often take years to develop, approve, make and distribute globally. There is heightened activity, however, and a strong desire in the medical community to fast-track the process.
In fact, as states and countries slowly emerge from lockdown measures meant to curb the spread of the coronavirus, doctors and scientists around the globe are racing to develop vaccines to bring an end to the pandemic, which has already claimed over 320,000 lives worldwide. Even though hardly four months have passed since a cluster of unusual pneumonia cases in Wuhan, China first alerted the world to a new disease now known as COVID-19, at least half a dozen vaccine development projects are already reporting encouraging progress, with many more in development.
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One more note before we get underway. This article is updated frequently as new information comes to light, and is intended to be a general overview, not a source of medical advice. If you’re seeking more information about coronavirus testing, here’s how to find a testing site near you. Here’s how to know if you qualify for a test and why there aren’t any coronavirus at-home test kits yet.
Read more: What it will take for life to return to normal after lockdown ends
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The latest newsmakers: Moderna and Oxford University
Moderna, a Massachusetts-based biotech company, is making headlines for its coronavirus vaccine development — both positive and negative. On Monday, reports that Moderna’s first trials showed promise for immunity caused Moderna’s stock to soar. On Tuesday, scientists cast doubt on the company’s data, causing the same stocks to falter.
Moderna is the beneficiary of the US Food and Drug Administration’s program to fast-track a vaccine. The fast-track process expedites approval by allowing select labs to submit their review process by phases, rather than submitting all sections of the application at once, which is the usual way. The company ran Phase 1 clinical trials and reported preliminary data that it says supports the move to a larger Phase 2 trial. You can learn more about its vaccine candidate, mRNA-1273, here.
Another vaccine is under development at Oxford University in the UK. Scientists there say their vaccine could be ready by the fall of 2020. Oxford is working with pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, which began Phase 1 human trials in April.
Scientists say in a paper that results from Oxford’s trials on mice and rhesus monkeys are mixed, however, speculating that humans who eventually take the vaccine might still be able to spread the virus. You can read more about this effort, called ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, at AstraZeneca’s website.
Will there be just one vaccine for everyone?
We won’t know for a long time, but Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, suggests that it might take several different vaccines made and distributed by different labs in order to effectively eradicate COVID-19 from the planet. Fauci co-authored a paper about vaccines published May 11 in the journal Science.
