Jiang, who has worked on coronavirus vaccines since the 2003 SARS outbreak, said regulators should evaluate any vaccine's efficacy against a range of viruses and use several animal subjects before testing in humans. "Governments are understandably desperate for anything that would forestall the deaths, closures and quarantines resulting from Covid-19," he wrote. "But combating this disease demands a vaccine that is safe and potent." Experts have warned that a vaccine could be more than a year away as clinical trials need to ensure it is safe in human test subjects before distributing to the wider public. Nearly 208,680 people around the world have been infected with Covid-19, with more than 8,200 deaths, as of 1300 GMT Wednesday.

Source: Dhaka Tribune March 18, 2020 16:41 UTC