New idea to speed up coronavirus vaccine research is bold but dangerous

[Chris Smith]

• Coronavirus vaccine research is advancing at a fast pace, but that might not be enough for some lawmakers and scientists.
• There’s increasing support for a different type of COVID-19 vaccine clinical trial, one that involves purposely infecting young, healthy volunteers with the novel virus after vaccine inoculations.
• Challenge trials are risky for diseases that have no cure like COVID-19, as there’s no guarantee the young patients will survive the infection.
• Visit BGR’s homepage for more stories.

A vaccine for the novel coronavirus will be the kind of drug that can help eradicate the virus for good. A vaccine would prevent infection and the more people get it, the less likely it is for the virus to spread. The good news is that some 77 vaccines are already in testing, including six that have reached at least phase I of human trials. Also good is the fact that the virus isn’t showing significant mutations that would hinder vaccine efficacy. However, the first COVID-19 vaccines won't be ready for mass inoculations for up to 18 months. Some of them could be deployed as soon as this fall, but only specific categories of patients will be allowed to get one, including healthcare workers who constantly exposed to the virus.

The vaccines can’t come sooner than that because authorities need to make sure they’re safe, not just effective against the vaccine. The last thing we need to treat COVID-19 is a vaccine that can cause unexpected side-effects. You’d never hear the end of it from anti-vaxxers, not to mention that such an event might delay other vaccine work. But there is an idea to speed up coronavirus research that’s both bold and dangerous.

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New idea to speed up coronavirus vaccine research is bold but dangerous originally appeared on BGR.com on Sun, 26 Apr 2020 at 13:07:22 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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