Some 400 scientists from across the world are reviewing how the novel coronavirus is transmitted and possible vaccines during a two-day forum of the World Health Organization that kicked off Tuesday.
WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned the deadly virus was a “very grave threat” for the world as he opened the conference to combat the epidemic.
“With 99 percent of cases in China, this remains very much an emergency for that country, but one that holds a very grave threat for the rest of the world,” he said in Geneva.
“What matters most is stopping the outbreak and saving lives. With your support, that’s what we can do together,” Tedros said.
The virus, first identified in China on Dec. 31, has killed more than 1,000 people, infected over 42,000 and reached some 25 countries.
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Participants will also discuss the source of the virus, which is thought to have originated in bats and reached humans via another animal such as snakes or pangolins.
There is no specific treatment or vaccine against the virus, which can cause respiratory failure.
Tedros, who has repeatedly urged countries affected to share their data, called for global “solidarity.”
“That is especially true in relation to sharing of samples and sequences. To defeat this outbreak, we need open and equitable sharing, according to the principles of fairness and equity,” he said.
“We hope that one of the outcomes of this meeting will be an agreed roadmap for research around which researchers and donors will align,” Tedros said.
Several companies and institutes in Australia, China, France, Germany, and the United States are racing to develop a vaccine—a process that normally takes years.
Asked whether scientists from Taiwan would be allowed to take part in this week’s Geneva conference, WHO officials said that they would do so but only online—along with colleagues from other parts of China.
Meanwhile, a team of British scientists believes they have become the first to start animal testing of a vaccine for the new coronavirus.
Researchers at Imperial College London said their ultimate goal was to have an effective and safe way of halting the SARS-like strain’s spread by the end of the year.
“At the moment we have just put the vaccine that we’ve generated from these bacteria into mice,” Imperial College London researcher Paul McKay said.
“We’re hoping that over the next few weeks we’ll be able to determine the response that we can see in those mice, in their blood, their antibody response to the coronavirus.”
Britain has recorded eight cases and has been forced to shut down two branches of a medical center in the southeast city of Brighton where at least two staff members tested positive.
But coming up with a vaccine is a laborious process that usually involves years of animal testing and clinal trials on humans.
Regulators must then make sure that the vaccine is both sufficiently safe and effective to be mass-produced.
Imperial College London hopes that research on the SARS coronavirus nearly two decades ago can speed things up.
“We’re hoping to be the first to get this particular vaccine into human clinical trials, and that perhaps is our personal goal,” McKay said.
“Once the phase one trial is complete—which can take a few months to complete—it can be immediately started into an efficacy trial in people, which will also take a few months to complete,” McKay added.
Much of the world’s current research into the new strain is being funded through the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations.
The group was formed at the 2017 World Economic Forum in Davos to help drug companies and universities join forces and stamp out dangerous and preventable diseases.
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