In some ways, I’ve been lucky with the COVID-19 pandemic.
The virus that causes it is highly contagious but just as fatal as others in its coronavirus family. The initial SARS virus killed about 1 in 10 inflamed people; a parent named Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, still kills 1 in 3 people.
But we may not be so lucky. With animals, including bats, colonized by many coronaviruses, others may also be accompanied by SARS-CoV-2 infectivity and MERS mortality rate.
Hoping to spare him this, scientists on Tuesday unveiled a “roadmap” for expanding a new vaccine that would be largely protective against all coronaviruses.
If given early, such a vaccine can preferably prevent a long-term pandemic of this type of virus, said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, which is helping to lead the effort.
“Can we achieve this? We don’t know,” he said. We wouldn’t know until we tried. “
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Vaccines developed to fight COVID-19 “are remarkable” but have limitations, said Dr. Bruce Gellin, chief of public fitness strategy at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Pandemic Prevention Institute.
“We need to be more prepared and drive away viruses (or variants) as they emerge,” he said.
The Rockefeller Group and the Gates Foundation are partners in the initiative with the Osterholm Center, which has helped expand roadmaps for the flu, Ebola, Marburg, Lassa and Zika viruses.
By combining their efforts, the 3 organizations hope to motivate others to sign up for the effort and “compress the schedule” needed to expand safe and effective next-generation vaccines, Gellin said.
The U. S. government The U. S. Department of Agriculture allocated $10 billion at the beginning of the pandemic to expand and acquire the existing generation of vaccines. There has been no effort for the next generation.
“It’s a matter of time,” Gellin said. How much can you do now to shorten the time you want it?”
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The map includes timelines and targets for the main objectives:
The roadmap outlines methods and milestones for achieving each of these goals. For example, by 2024, the organization must identify a collaborative overseas surveillance program to identify, characterize, and percentage of data on SARS-CoV-2 variants, in the same way. that the World Health Organization tracks variants of influenza.
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The plan outlines 3 imaginable visions for long-term vaccines.
The first is a vaccine that is administered as part of an immunization program for adults or formative years that would oppose variants of the existing SARS-CoV-2 virus, as well as other coronaviruses that could occur.
Second, the use of vaccines as part of a pandemic preparedness strategy, which means that there are vaccines that can protect against novel coronaviruses. These vaccines can be stockpiled to temporarily interrupt transmission and prevent an outbreak from becoming a global pandemic.
A third option may be a combination of both, in which the regimen’s vaccines can only be given to others at higher risk of severe illness or exposure to a new virus, such as fitness workers, with more vaccines in reserve in the event of an outbreak.
All 3 deserve to be affordable and usable in all regions of the world, adding low-income countries; to be able to save you from serious diseases and, ideally, transmission; shield against a wide diversity of coronaviruses; supply shielding for at least one year; And it is for everyone, adding children, pregnant women and immunocompromised people.
Everyone needs to get out of the COVID-19 pandemic, but no one needs to be on that stage ever again. The purpose of the roadmap, Gellin said, is to “remain on guard when the appetite and resources to do so are less. “of what the full-blown emergency was. “
While the map shows the route, it doesn’t assign quick daily jobs and can’t force action, Osterholm said.
But at least the government, philanthropists and researchers can perceive what happens and what it wants to happen next, he said.
“Everyone has a totally transparent view of what you want to do and what you’re doing, or what’s being done. “
Contact Karen Weintraub at kweintraub@usatoday. com.
USA TODAY’s fitness and patient protection policy is made possible in part through a grant from the Masimo Foundation for health care ethics, innovation and competence. The Masimo Foundation does not provide editorial contributions.