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On the genetic and drug trail to contain the deadly coronavirus in China
- HIV medications and genome sequencing are two technologies being used in response to the outbreak as scientists search for a vaccine and treatment
- Researchers say the new pathogen is closer to a bat coronavirus than Sars
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Infectious disease specialists and epidemiologists in China are racing to develop a vaccine and other treatments for a coronavirus that has claimed 56 lives since it was detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last month.
Xu Wenbo, director of the virus institute at Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said researchers had isolated virus strains for vaccine development, state-run news portal Chinanews.com reported on Sunday.
Xu said researchers had used “high-throughput genetic sequencing” technology to identify the pathogen’s genome one day after the first four samples of the coronavirus were sent from Wuhan on January 2.
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But the CDC did not give a timeline for plans to develop a vaccine.
The Wuhan pathogen is from a large family of viruses called coronaviruses, one of which also caused the deadly 2002-03 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars).
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