MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 13th February, 2020) The first tests of vaccines against the COVID-2019 on humans will begin in three to four months, Chief Scientist of the World Health Organization Soumya Swaminathan said on Wednesday.
Swaminathan spoke at a press conference at a two-day international forum on coronavirus in Geneva with more than 400 scientists in attendance in person and via internet.
"There are already four vaccine candidates in development, and it is likely that there will be one or two that will go into human trials in about three to four months from now. That itself would be a very rapid progress," Swaminathan said.
According to her, the scientists at the forum have discussed the time frame of determining which vaccines should be prioritized for human tests, but regardless of the choice, she said the soonest the first vaccine should be expected to become publicly available is in 12-18 months.
With regard to therapeutics for treating the patients, Swaminathan said a number of drugs were put forward for testing, either singly or in combination, and the scientists at the forum had agreed to come up with a unified protocol to regulate the tests.
"The faster we can agree on implementing a protocol like that, the more likely that we will get results and be able to use those results really to treat patients better," Swaminathan said.
The outbreak of a novel coronavirus strain is in its third month and has already sickened over 45,000 and killed over 1,100 people, the overwhelming majority of them in China where the virus has originated.
In Thailand, where health authorities conducted an experimental treatment of the COVID-2019 with HIV and flu medications, they said that that the inflammation in a female patient was soothed in 48 hours and the infection was completely gone in several days.
