Hi Jay, Looks like we will be under siege for some time, possibly forever. Between a perpetual war of civilizations and a forever, ever expanding, ever mutating siege of coronavirus, all on top of weakening asset values and grinding currencies, life promises to be interesting. Thank goodness we have gold.
Which ever biotech firm figure out the necessary science to produce a product against SARS will presumably make a fortune.
Thursday, April 17, 2003
Scientist: finding Sars vaccine will be difficult
hongkong.scmp.com
KIT LAU
Updated at 5.41pm:
Finding a vaccine for the atypical pneumonia ''coronavirus'' could be very difficult, a leading United States scientist warned on Wednesday.
Alison Galvani, of the University of California-Berkeley, said people should be prepared for an long, arduous battle against the coronavirus - as it had the ability to mutate and become more dangerous.
Ms Galvani's comments follow an announcement on Wednesday that scientists at Hong Kong University had made a breakthrough that could speed up the development of a Sars vaccine. The scientists said they had completed the genetic sequencing of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) caronavirus. The discovery sparked hopes of a more effective treatment and more accurate diagnostic tests for the disease.
But Ms Galvani cautioned that a vaccine could be a long way off.
''We don't know much about coronviruses.... It hasn't been a subject of intense research until now because this was the first time that coronavirus is posing a serious threat to human health,'' she told local radio.
''We can't make predictions about evolution and epidemological properties of Sars based of analogies of other coronaviruses,'' Ms Galvani explained.
She said finding an effective Sars vaccine would be difficult.
''Unfortunately, there are no antiviral drugs or vaccines for human coronaviruses, and we cannot expect the vaccine to be produced in the near future. This means measures such as quarantining and travel restrictions are the only ways of limiting the disease at the moment,'' said Ms Galvani.
She also stressed that the Sars virus - which is closely related to common cold - had the ability to mutate.
''Coronaviruses have the potential to evolve and diversify. This means that even if we are able to produce a vaccine or a drug against Sars, it may rapidly evolve resistance,'' added Ms Galvani.
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