WHO health expert doesn’t know how long it will take to develop a coronavirus vaccine
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Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, the technical lead for the Covid-19 response at the World Health Organization, joined CNN’s global town hall program Thursday night to discuss a coronavirus vaccine and how it will take to develop.
“We’ve seen the global community come together. Manufacturers, scientists, leaders — to accelerate the development of a vaccine. Everybody wants to know exactly how long that’s going to take. We can’t give an answer to that because it takes time to do these studies, these clinical trials to see if it’s safe and effective,” Van Kerkhove told CNN.
Van Kerkhove added: “We need to ensure that there’s access to that to everyone on the planet. And so this virus will be with us. We need to find a way to get to that steady state where we can suppress transmission enough, get back to our lives, to get back to living our daily lives.”
She also warned the virus is resurging in several parts of the world.
Speaking during CNN’s ongoing town hall tonight, she said places that have seen some success in suppressing transmission are now experiencing a second wave of infection, pointing to South Korea, Singapore, and Wuhan — the Chinese city at ground zero for the pandemic.
There are different reasons we’re seeing a resurgence of the virus in these places, she said; in South Korea, a new cluster in Seoul is linked to nightclubs, while Singapore’s outbreak is largely concentrated within migrant worker dormitories.
“But what is really important is that in China, in Korea, in Singapore, they have systems in place to rapidly identify the virus again and rapidly start their contact tracing,” Van Kerkhove said.
“And they’ve never let up. This is a lesson for all countries. The virus likes to find opportunities to resurge, to increase again. And we just all need to be ready for that.”
