Yemisi Izuora/Agency Report
The World Health Organization (WHO) is working with scientists from around the world on about 20 different Coronavirus vaccines as the virus rampages the world.
This was stated by the technical director of the WHO emergency program; Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, at a press conference at the organization’s headquarters in Geneva, CNBC reports.
“The acceleration of this process is really truly dramatic in terms of what we’re able to do; building on work that started with SARS; that started with MERS and now is being used for COVID-19,” Van Kerkhove said.
The vaccines are still a long way away from being available for public use; WHO officials also cautioned.
Leading scientists say the clinical trials as well as safety approvals needed to get a workable vaccine to market could take up to 18 months.
Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO’s emergencies program, said the trials are necessary. There’s only one thing more dangerous than a bad virus, he said.
“We have to be very careful in developing any product that we’re going to inject into potentially most of the world’s population,” he said; adding that the first human trials on a vaccine that started this week in the U.S. were “unprecedented in speed.”
He said that would have never happened; if China as well as other countries hadn’t shared the genetic sequence of COVID-19 with the rest of the world.