Developing Covid-19 Vaccine Takes 1 Year at Soonest: Researcher
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2 June 2020 19:10 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Head of the Clinical Microbiology Laboratory at the University of Indonesia’s Faculty of Medicine, Pratiwi Sudarmono, asserted that vaccines for Covid-19 caused by the new coronavirus could not be developed shortly.
“I need to say that this [vaccine] cannot be produced in the near future. [It takes] one year at the soonest possible time,” said Pratiwi in a press conference via a Youtube account of the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) on Tuesday, June 2.
Pratiwi recalled that she spent half of her life examining vaccines for dengue fever or DBD in Indonesia, and that was even hard.
According to her, there are about a hundred researches for SARS-CoV-2 that causes Covid-19 with some of them having entered the first and second phase of clinical trials. However, they are still on the security aspect. By means, researchers were looking for the right doses and observing whether antibodies are created on animal’s bodies.
“If antibodies exist, we can move up to a third phase, [clinical trials] on humans,” Pratiwi said.
Besides, she went on, SARS-CoV-2 is an RNA virus that can rapidly mutate. Thus, it is part of considerations in developing an effective vaccine.
FRISKI RIANA
