Coronavirus Vaccine ‘Weeks Away’ From Being Developed, Says Head of Israeli Science Research Institute CORONAVIRUS VACCINE ‘WEEKS’ AWAY FROM BEING DEVELOPED, SAYS HEAD OF ISRAELI SCIENCE RESEARCH INSTITUTE

The head of a research institute in Israel has said its scientists are “weeks” away from developing a vaccine against the deadly new coronavirus which causes COVID-19.

The new virus that has killed over 2,800 people is a member of the large coronavirus family of pathogens, which also includes SARS and MERS. On Thursday, the MIGAL Galilee Research Institute said in a statement a new vaccine against a coronavirus which infects chickens has brought them a step closer to developing a preparation to protect against COVID-19.

According to the statement, a multi-disciplinary team created an Infectious Bronchitis Virus (IBV) vaccine which has been shown to be effective in pre-clinical trials. The scientists found the bird virus has a similar genetic code to and infects individuals in the same way as the deadly new coronavirus in humans, of which there are over 83,000 cases as shown by the Statista map below. This “increases the likelihood of achieving an effective human vaccine in a very short period of time,” the institute said.

The scientists adjusted the IBV vaccine to the virus which causes COVID-19, and are working on meeting safety standards which will enable them to test it “in-vivo,” or in living organisms. They hope these steps will “enable the initiation of production of a vaccine to counter the Coronavirus epidemic currently spreading throughout the world,” the statement read.

Commenting on the news, David Zigdon, CEO of MIGAL said: “Given the urgent global need for a human coronavirus vaccine, we are doing everything we can to accelerate development.

“Our goal is to produce the vaccine during the next 8 to 10 weeks, and to achieve safety approval in 90 days. This will be an oral vaccine, making it particularly accessible to the general public.

(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.com …