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Rabat – A group of researchers are working on a new vaccination approach that can prove effective against all future viruses belonging to the coronavirus category.
The study, published on October 9 in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, details a new vaccination method that induces healthy mice to produce antibodies that are effective against a wide range of Coronaviruses.
Although still in the animal trial phase, the method, if successfully adopted for humans, will allow for the creation of a “next-generation” vaccine capable of eliminating the danger of all future Coronavirus diseases.
COVID-19 is an infectious respiratory disease first identified in late 2019 in Wuhan, China. The virus is caused by the respiratory disease SARS which previously triggered the 2002 SARS-COV-1 outbreak that lasted for two years.
Since the 2002 outbreak, experts in biodiversity have repeatedly warned that SARS outbreaks will become more frequent, and will have a large-scale global impact.
“As many as 1.7 million unidentified viruses of the type known to infect people are believed to still exist in mammals and water birds,” a biodiversity expert wrote in a 2020 article published by IPBES, also known as the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.
In the same article, the author warns that future pandemics will likely be more lethal, and cause even bigger disruptions to the global economy and supply chain.
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) report published on June 31, 2021, estimated that the global economy would lose over $4 trillion (MAD 36.27 trillion) in tourism alone between 2020 and 2021.
As of mid-2020, the global economy is projected to contract by 2.3%, resulting in a loss of $8.2 trillion (MAD 74.3 trillion) in the subsequent two years, according to the United Nations’ Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
Preventing future pandemics ultimately requires taking nation-level as well as international measures, according to experts. World governments are now taking the necessary steps and demonstrating commitment to prevent future pandemics from occurring.
In the US, Congress introduced the “Preventing Future Pandemics Act” with the goal of prioritizing global health concerns post COVID-19. In Morocco, the government has pledged to make healthcare accessible to all citizens as part of a larger plan to strengthen the social safety net.
On May 20, the World Health Assembly proposed the idea of signing an international treaty on pandemics. A key objective of the treaty is to bind governments to work together to establish a “universal instrument” in response to future pandemic threats.
As of October 7, there are 21 vaccine developers and 125 vaccine manufacturers across 45 countries, according to the Global Health Centre, a research institute in Geneva.
