Coronavirus Vaccine Development – US Collaborates With Sanofi
The death toll from China’s coronavirus has reached 2000 on Tuesday, leaving another milestone to this highly-infectious disease. There is still fear among the doctors that it can lead to the next global pandemic.
The threat of Covid-19 in the United States forced them to accelerate the search for a vaccine to prevent the spread of disease despite the announcement from the World Health Organization last week sating the vaccine might take 18 months to develop.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said that they will provide funding to Sanofi S.A, a French multinational pharmaceutical company, to develop a coronavirus vaccine candidate. Apart from Sanofi, the US will also collaborate with a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research, the Janssen Research, and Development (JRD), for the development of coronavirus vaccine.
Expertise and reallocated funds will be provided by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) of HHS to support the development of the vaccine. Sanofi had previously worked to develop the vaccine for a similar coronavirus outbreak in Hong Kong; SARS occurred from 2002 to 2003. Janssen Research and Development will check if the previously discovered drugs can be used to treat Covid-19 patients.
This new global threat can be addressed immediately by the proven technology of Sanofi. A vaccine that will provide long-term health security against the new virus and prevent any future coronavirus outbreaks is the goal of Sanofi.
There is currently no diagnostics, treatment, or approved vaccine against the novel coronavirus. As the number of cases is skyrocketing in China, all the medical and scientific communities worldwide are scrambling to develop a vaccine.
The virus has claimed more than 2000 lives by now and infected nearly 75,000 people, according to the National Health Commission (NHC) of China. Most of them are from the Wuhan city of China, which is the epicenter of the disease. NHC also claims that more than 16,000 have recovered from the disease.
There have been eight deaths from outside China. One person has each died in the Philippines, Hong Kong, Japan, France, and the Republic of China (Taiwan), and two each have died in Iran and the Diamond Princess” cruise ship.
