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UN News | November 7, 2003
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SARS VACCINE TRIAL COULD START IN A
FEW MONTHS - WHO
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New
York --
A vaccine for the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) will not
be available if an epidemic should recur at the end of the year, but
the first clinical trial of a vaccine could begin as early as
January 2004, health experts convened by the United Nations World
Health Organization (WHO) have concluded.
After a two-day review of research progress, the WHO Consultation on
SARS Vaccine Research and Development said a resurgence of the
illness could speed up research and result in a vaccine within two
years. Without a new outbreak, the vaccine would follow the
classical development path and not be ready for four to five years.
In the meantime, “we must be ready to manage a possible resurgence
of SARS through the control measures that work - surveillance, early
diagnosis, hospital infection control, contact tracing and
international reporting. Research must continue to determine if,
how, and how soon a vaccine will add to these existing control
measures, WHO Director-General Lee Jong-wook said.
The group of 50 experts from 15 countries examined what is known of
how the SARS coronavirus causes human disease, the factors involved
in choosing the best genetic strains for future vaccines and the
help or the hindrance raised by patent and intellectual property
issues.
The consultants also reviewed recent work on experimental vaccines
in animals and how that information could be used to initiate
clinical trials in human volunteers. But human trials might be
inappropriate, given the severity of the disease, its relatively
rare occurrence and the urgency of the search for inoculation, they
said.
“SARS might have to be licensed in the absence of efficacy data
generated in humans,” they concluded.
Dr. Marie-Paule Kieny, Director of the WHO Initiative for Vaccine
Research, said, “If we are to develop a SARS vaccine more quickly
than usual, we have to continue to work together on many fronts at
once, on scientific research, intellectual property and patents
issues, and accessibility. It is a very complicated process,
involving an unprecedented level of international cooperation, which
is changing the way we work.”
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