Right now, the coronavirus outbreak that started in China has the attention of scientists and medical professionals from around the world. Due to the potential seriousness of this outbreak, scientists are working together in a way that is unprecedented in order to quickly find a way to combat this disease.
Usually, scientists are secretive when it comes to sharing their research. They labor for years in order to make a research breakthrough regarding a new treatment or new drug. When it comes to battling the new coronavirus, scientists are acting in a much different manner. They are sharing their research in order to find a way to stop this virus from having serious global consequences.
The genome of the current coronavirus has already been mapped, and the information has been made available to researchers and scientists around the world. Scientists at Purdue University are now using information from the genome to ramp up production of some of the drugs that they had developed to fight SARS.
The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases believes that it might be possible to bring a vaccine forward for human testing in as little as three months. This is due in part to the way that scientists are sharing information with one another. When scientists were attempting to develop a vaccine for SARS, it took around 20 months from the time that the genome of the virus was mapped.
Although it may be only around three months before human testing begins on a possible vaccine for the new coronavirus, scientists want people to know that the vaccine won’t be generally available for several more months. Rigorous testing will have to take place to make sure that there aren’t serious health consequences with any type of vaccine.
In the meantime, scientists and health professionals are monitoring cases of suspected coronavirus carefully. Those who are suspected of having the illness are being quarantined to keep the virus from spreading.
