Vaccine for new Chinese coronavirus in the works
POSTED 8:35 PM, JANUARY 20, 2020, BY
CNN WIRE
The National Institutes of Health is working on a vaccine against the new virus that has infected hundreds and killed four in Asia.
“The NIH is in the process of taking the first steps towards the development of a vaccine,” said
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Fauci said it would take a few months until the first phase of the clinical trials get underway and more than a year until a vaccine might be available.
The latest
The virus, which was first reported at the end of December,
has infected more than 200 people, according to a Chinese government-appointed expert. The bulk of the cases have been in China, but there have been four cases in Thailand, South Korea and Japan.
The virus originated in animals and can be spread from person to person. While most of the patients visited an animal and seafood market in Wuhan, a city about 700 miles south of Beijing, some did not.
This new virus
is a coronavirus, which is the same family as the virus that causes SARS, or
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which was first reported in Asia in 2003 and killed more than 700 people.
Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, or MERS, which has killed more than 800 people since 2012, is also caused by a coronavirus.
Working on a vaccine
A team of scientists in Texas, New York and China are also at work on a vaccine, according to Dr. Peter Hotez, a vaccine scientist at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.
“The lesson we’ve learned is coronavirus infections are serious and one of the newest and biggest global health threats,” Hotez said.
He added that it’s less challenging to develop a vaccine for coronaviruses than for other viruses such as HIV or influenza.
“Every virus has its challenges, but coronaviruses can be a relatively straightforward vaccine target,” Hotez said.
If a vaccine is developed, he said, health care workers might be among the first to receive it because they’re exposed to infected patients.
It is “remarkable” that scientists are able to start developing a vaccine for a virus that was identified less than a month ago, he said.
He credited Chinese researchers, who quickly sequenced and published the virus’s genome.
“With SARS, it took almost a year to be able to identify and map the full genetic code,” he said. “Now we’re doing this in just a few weeks.”
‘An evolving situation’
Fauci emphasized there are still many questions about this new virus.
“This is an evolving situation, and it’s tough to predict ultimately where it will go,” he said. “But we have to take it very seriously.”
A few things are clear. One, the virus jumped from animals to humans, just like SARS did nearly two decades ago.
He added it’s unclear whether just one type of animal is transmitting the virus to humans, or more than one type.
He also said while it’s clear this new virus can be spread from person to person, it’s unclear how easily that spread can happen.
“Is it a continual spread? Is it sustained? We’re not quite sure yet,” he said.
Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, agreed there are many questions.
“This is one of those inflection moments in outbreak history where we have enough information to be very concerned, but not enough information to say this is going to be an international crisis,” he said.
https://q13fox.com/2020/01/20/vaccine-for-new-chinese-coronavirus-in-the-works/
Drugmaker says it is working on coronavirus vaccine
BY MEGAN CERULLO
JANUARY 22, 2020 / 2:15 PM / MONEYWATCH
Shares of Novavax jumped 60% on Tuesday after the drugmaker said it is working on a vaccine for the deadly
coronavirus from China.
Novavax touted its experience developing vaccine candidates for coronaviruses, including vaccines to protect against
Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).
"In response to the emergence of the Wuhan-version of the coronavirus seen recently in China, Novavax has initiated development of a vaccine candidate," the company said in a statement to
CBS MoneyWatch.
Novavax's stock gave nearly half of the gains on Wednesday, falling 27% to $7.19.
Coronaviruses are a large group of viruses that can cause illnesses as minor as a cold, or as serious MERS and SARS, according to the
World Health Organization. They often cause pneumonia-like symptoms.
The viruses are transmitted from animals to humans — the virus that causes SARS, for example, was transmitted to humans from a cat-like animal called a civet. But in some instances, as appears to be the case with this new strain of coronavirus, they can also be transmitted between humans.
Novavax said it will use "recombinant nanoparticle" technology to develop a vaccine candidate to combat the virus, which appears to have started in the city of Wuhan in central China.
The Wuhan version of the virus
has infected almost 450 people and killed 17 during China's peak travel season around the Lunar New Year festival, sparking fear that the virus could depress tourism and economic activity.
Other companies that develop vaccines, including Aethlon Medical, Inovio Pharmaceuticals and BioCryst Phramaceuticals, also saw their shares rise as the coronavirus spread.
First published on January 22, 2020 / 2:15 PM
© 2020 CBS Interactive Inc.. All Rights Reserved.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-novavax-stock-up-after-it-says-its-working-on-vaccine/
