First appearing late December of 2019, the new coronavirus (called the COVID-19) managed to kill almost 1,400 people and infect several thousands more in Mainland China alone in a mere two months, putting people to pin their hopes on one of the most effective disease-fighting tools: a vaccine.

Having one would mean that there would no longer be a need to quarantine people nor close off cities and monitor airports because people would be protected from the virus even before they get exposed.

Is one coming anytime soon? Experts themselves are still unsure.

Not that there hasn’t been any effort whatsoever, some research have actually started animal testing, with hopes of moving on to clinical human trials soon. However, a lot of experts still harbor doubts about these timelines since assuring a vaccine’s safety and effectiveness, especially one that will be used in a scale such as this, cannot be rushed.

A variety of approaches are being made as well, despite some destined to fail. One that has started harboring interest is so-called vaccine “platforms,” which is a recent innovation that can supposedly help supercharge their development by a significant amount.

“A lot of (research) groups have ‘platforms’ — they’ve done this for other diseases, and they sort of just slip in the gene for this virus, as opposed to whatever they were working on before,” Allen Cheng, a leading infectious disease specialist and epidemiologist, explained.

At its heart is the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation (CEPI), a Norway-based public-private partnership launched at Davos in 2017 to respond to just this kind of crisis. Established to support new vaccine solutions for emerging viruses, it has around $750 million in funding, with $450 million set aside for “platform” technologies.

Still, this doesn’t guarantee a vaccine because the development is not simple, with many things bound to easily go wrong.

Nevertheless, a host of different groups has already started working on different vaccine candidates, all hoping to be the one to finally put a stop to the epidemic once and for all. All that’s left to do now is wait.

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