Scientists fear that new coronaviruses in the future could be highly transmissible as well as lethal, which may imperil the protection provided by current vaccines against the disease

A group of scientists has launched a global initiative to develop more effective and protective vaccines against continually emerging COVID-19 variants.

The initiative called the Coronavirus Vaccines Research and Development (R&D) Roadmap is being led by the US Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota.

50 scientists from around the world have collaborated to produce a unified strategy to make the critically needed vaccines a reality.

“The COVID-19 pandemic marks the third time in just 20 years that a coronavirus has emerged to cause a public health crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic taught us the hard lesson that we must be better prepared,” Director of the CIDRAP Professor Michael Osterholm said.

“Rather than waiting for a fourth coronavirus to emerge - or for the arrival of an especially dangerous SARS-CoV-2 variant - we must act now to develop better, longer lasting and more broadly protective vaccines,” Click To Tweet

Even though COVID-19 has a lower fatality rate, it is highly infectious and has infected more than 650 million people and caused 6.6 million deaths by the end of 2022 worldwide.

Scientists fear that new coronaviruses in the future could be highly transmissible as well as lethal, which may imperil the protection provided by current vaccines against the disease.

More concerning is the threat of the emergence of a super-coronavirus that has the transmissibility of COVID-19 combined with the deadliness of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV).

MERS-CoV which in 2012 spread to humans from camels carries a high mortality risk, with about one third of the infections resulting in death.

The Coronavirus Vaccines (R&D) Roadmap sets forth a strategy to accelerate the development of coronavirus vaccines which are suitable for all the regions around the world and are more effective and capable of preventing disease and deaths.

“It is critical that we start now to develop vaccines that are future-ready for coronaviruses circulating in animals now, that might infect humans and cause pandemics in the future as SARS-CoV-3 and beyond,” Professor Linfa Wang, who is part of the team that developed the roadmap, said.

“The coronavirus diversity in bats is so great that we even don’t know how much we really know about them,” she added..

Bruce Gellin, Chief of global public health strategy at The Rockefeller Foundation, said: “The Coronavirus Vaccines R&D Roadmap charts a path to aggressively get ahead of new and emerging threats by prioritizing the development of vaccines that provide long-lasting immunity against a broad range of coronaviruses and are equitably available to all.”

Also Read: ‘India is better prepared for the next pandemic’

Author

Insha Dar

Insha Mushtaq, a health reporter for The Health Leads, hails originally from Srinagar, Kashmir. She possesses an uncanny ability to distill complex issues into accessible and engaging articles. In addition, Insha holds a bachelor’s degree in Mass Media from Mumbai University and is currently pursuing a Master's in Convergent Journalism at the Central University of Kashmir.
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