A mad dash is afoot to craft a vaccine for the new coronavirus that’s ravaging China and starting to spread across the globe, with possibly dozens of labs working on permanent protection against the pathogen.
Researchers say an effective vaccine could be created in a matter of weeks, using advanced techniques.
“We know enough. We can do this. We can actually make a vaccine in the lab in two weeks,” said Florian Krammer, a professor of vaccinology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, in New York City. “But — here’s the but — that doesn’t help us much.”
Why not? Because any new vaccine will still face manufacturing and regulatory hurdles that would take months to surmount, experts say.
Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said, “Though we may be in