Who Says Sars Vaccine May Take a Year to Develop

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http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_13102.html

 

Reuters Health Information
 

Who Says Sars Vaccine May Take a Year to Develop

Reuters Health

Thursday, June 19, 2003

 

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - The World Health Organization said on Thursday a vaccine against the deadly SARS virus, which swept out of China and spread across the world, could take at least a year to develop.

"For a new disease like SARS, when the concepts that we need for an effective vaccine are not known ... I wouldn't see a SARS vaccine for large scale deployment before at least a year," Marie-Paule Kieny, director of the initiative for vaccine research, at the United Nations' health body, told a news briefing.

Until then the world would have to rely on old-fashioned methods of isolating sufferers to combat the deadly virus that has infected about 8,500 people and killed almost 800 since it emerged late last year in southern China.

WHO officials said another outbreak of the severe acute respiratory syndrome cannot be ruled out, making the need to develop better diagnostic tests and a vaccine even more urgent.

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