Scientists race to devise SARS vaccine
AFP - US government scientists have launched an all out effort to develop a vaccine against SARS, in case the deadly virus turns into a pandemic and spreads to the United States, The Washington Post has reported.
The National Institutes of Health will spearhead the effort on multiple fronts to jump-start treatment and prevention research of a rapidly mutating virus that should be easier to contain than the virus that causes AIDS.
"When you have an infection in which the majority of the people, in fact the very large majority of the people, spontaneously recover, eliminating the virus from their body, that's a very big hint that you can get a vaccine," said Anthony Fauci, who heads the the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a unit of the NIH.
Experience with related diseases in domestic animals, scientists said, suggests a vaccine against Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome may be attainable within as little as one year, although two to three years is more likely.
SARS has killed at least 333 people worldwide, including 148 in mainland China and 150 in Hong Kong, since it was first reported in China in November. The disease has also infected some 5,400 worldwide.
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While the disease is still rampant in China, where nearly
10,000 people have been quarantined in Beijing alone, it appears to
be levelling off elsewhere. The United States may have largely
escaped the deadly virus.
The World Health Organisation has lifted a travel advisory for Toronto effective immediately, after the Canadian city went for 20 days without any locally transmitted cases.
"Quite frankly, I don't think SARS is going to fizzle out," Fauci said in an interview with the paper. "This is a really unusual situation where you are in the midst of the evolution" of a new disease, he said. "You have to make strategic decisions about public health measures now."
The US government's strategy, the daily said, is to try to take advantage of modern genetic science in attempting to develop a vaccine to prevent new infections experiencing a SARS outbreak, and also various kinds of treatments to help people infected with the virus.
Fauci said his plan is to pursue all approaches to vaccines in simultaneous research programs by setting up a race between various laboratories specialising in different techniques.
Asked where the money will come from -- the US Congress has yet to appropriate funds for SARS -- Fauci was dismissive.
"We're just going to do it, and we'll talk about the money later," Fauci said. "It's got to be done."
İAAP 2003