Wednesday, January 22, 2020

Vaccine for SARS?

Is there a vaccine for SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome)? The following is a summary of various reports.

In December 2004, the official website of the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology claims that "中国研制出安全有效的SARS灭活疫苗" (China has developed a safe and effective inactivated vaccine for SARS), which seems to contradict the Wikipedia SARS article, "[t]here is no vaccine for SARS ". According to a 2016 article from healthline.com, "[r]esearchers are currently working on a vaccine for SARS, but there have been no human trials for any potential vaccine. According to a 2018 article from medicinenet.com, “[n]o licensed vaccine had hitherto been developed for any human coronavirus”. But a November 2012 NBC News article says “Chinese researchers expect to begin human trials next month on an experimental SARS vaccine”. I have not been able to find any outcome of or follow-up to that 2012 human trial. According to a Jan 22, 2020 Time article, "[f]ollowing the SARS outbreak in 2003, researchers produced a vaccine that made it to phase one human trials, which test the safety of a new drug. But the effort never progressed further, mainly due to shifting research priorities as the outbreak came to an end."