18 Months to Develop ‘Coronavirus Vaccine’ Says WHO

China’s Coronavirus epidemic, which has so far killed 1,120 and affected 44,708 in China also poses a serious threat to the rest of the world and can be viewed as ‘Public Enemy Number 1’, said the World Health Organization (WHO) recently.

Director-General of WHO Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has also appealed to all the countries of the world to step up measures to detect and contain the virus, especially in the 30 countries, which have weaker health systems, as the virus could ‘create havoc’ there.

WHO in its two-day emergency meeting has appealed country’s to share virus samples and speeding up research into drugs and vaccines.

Tedros also informed that “The first vaccine could be ready in 18 months. So we have to do everything today using the available weapons to fight this virus while preparing for the long term using the preparations for the vaccines”.

WHO officially declared that the virus has been named COVID-19, with no geographical association. Fighting the virus has now taken the shape of war with terrorism.

Referring to some government’s counter-terrorism measures, the chief of WHO said, “A virus can have more powerful consequences than any terrorist action. If the world doesn't want to wake up and consider this enemy virus as Public Enemy number 1, I don't think we will learn from our lessons.”

He also told more than 400 researchers and national authorities, who participated in the emergency meeting, “With 99% 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”.

The movement and nature of the virus too are very difficult to understand. In some of the cases onward transmission from people with no travel history to China has been observed, he also cited the example of five British nationals, who were diagnosed with the coronavirus in France, after they stayed in the same ski chalet with a person who had recently been to Singapore.

Many questions still remained unanswered about the origin of the virus, which is believed to have emerged from a wildlife market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in December last year and spread by people in droplets from sneezing or coughing.

At last, Tedros told the experts, “We hope that one of the outcomes of this meeting will be an agreed roadmap for research around which researchers and donors will align”.