Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus attends a press conference in Geneva, Switzerland, Feb. 11, 2020. (Xinhua/Chen Junxia)
-First vaccine could be ready in 18 months.
-Currently there is no vaccine to prevent infections, and no proven therapeutics to treat them.
-Research roadmap to be released at the forum.
-A WHO team identifies several known pathogens as priorities for research
GENEVA, Feb. 12 (Xinhua) -- At a global research forum against novel coronavirus gathered by the World Health Organization (WHO), as well as at daily media briefing, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Tuesday briefed about the scientific research results and current problems on the novel coronavirus epidemic.
Following are some of the key points made by the WHO chief:
-First vaccine could be ready in 18 months.
-Currently there is no vaccine to prevent infections, and no proven therapeutics to treat them.
-Research roadmap to be released at the forum.
-WHO Research and Development Blueprint team identifies several known pathogens as priorities for research, but also includes scenarios for "pathogen x" - a previously unknown pathogen exactly like the one we are dealing with now.
Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus speaks at a press conference in Geneva, Switzerland, Feb. 11, 2020. (Xinhua/Chen Junxia)
The WHO R&D team was activated in early January to coordinate and facilitate information-sharing on research elements of the response.
The WHO research forum is expected to roll out a roadmap for the scientific research against the virus, which was formally named as Covid-19, which stands for coronavirus disease starting in 2019.
"The main outcome (of the forum) is an agreed roadmap on what questions we need to ask, and how we will go about answering those questions," Tedros said Tuesday at the daily media briefing on Covid-19.
"A research roadmap is also important for organizations that fund research to have a clear sense of what the public health priorities are, so they can make investments that deliver the biggest public health impact," the WHO chief said.
On the development of vaccines and therapeutics, Tedros said that it is one important part of the research agenda and will take time. He stressed that it is more important to use many basic public health interventions that are available to us now to prevent infections.
"The first vaccine could be ready in 18 months, so we have to do everything today using the available weapons to fight this virus, while preparing for the long-term," he said.■
