Staff writer, with CNAThe National Health Research Institutes (NHRI) yesterday said it is working “night and day” to develop a vaccine against the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), but a market-ready solution would likely come too late for use in the current outbreak. Researchers are aiming to create within two months a vaccine that produces a high level of immunity against 2019-nCoV in rats, before beginning clinical trials within six months, NHRI Chairman Lin Tzou-yien (林奏延) said. However, Institute of Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology director Liao Ching-len (廖經倫) said that as genome sequencing of the virus had only recently been completed, it was too early to discuss how effective a possible vaccine might be. From the laboratory to the market, the vaccine development process usually takes one to three years, even in the US, so this vaccine would not be used in the current outbreak, he said. The first of the NHRI’s vaccine types, a peptide vaccine, uses protein components to engineer targeted immune responses and could be developed within a few months, Liao said.

Source: Taipei Times February 07, 2020 15:56 UTC