It’s A Novel Coronavirus, But To Find A Vaccine Scientists Look To The Past

Researchers in Connecticut and on Long Island are among the brainpower working overtime to produce a vaccine for the coronavirus. Those vaccines could be months – if not, years – away.

But they say this is not unchartered territory. The lessons learned in past epidemics are now influencing how scientists are fighting the spread of COVID-19.

SARS is like a distant cousin of COVID-19, the disease the new coronavirus causes. In fact, SARS is a type of coronavirus, and COVID-19 and SARS both cause severe, fast-acting respiratory problems.

That’s why health professionals are optimistic that they know how to treat the symptoms of COVID-19. Unfortunately, it’s also why researchers say the devil is in the details.

“Viruses can evolve,” said Fred Cohan, microbial ecologist at Wesleyan University. He says creating a vaccine before the virus has a chance to become more efficient in its transmission is key.

“Ebola had a chance to go through thousands of cycles through humans. From infection to infection to infection, there was a lot of opportunity for it to get better at infecting humans.”

People with Ebola were quarantined and treated. A vaccine was approved and manufactured months later. And healthy people, for the most part, stayed healthy.

Cohan said public health officials and health professionals have learned a lot from viral outbreaks in recent years.

Read the rest of this story at WSHU’s website.