Navy Times 2/1/2020
Is there a vaccine under development for the coronavirus? Work has begun at multiple organizations, including the National Institutes of Health, to develop a vaccine for this new strain of coronavirus, known among scientists as 2019-nCoV.
Scientists are just getting started working, but their vaccine development strategy will benefit both from work that has been done on closely related viruses, such as SARS and MERS, as well as advances that have been made in vaccine technologies, such as nucleic acid vaccines, which are DNA- and RNA-based vaccines that produce the vaccine antigen in your own body.
Was work underway on this particular strain? No, but work was ongoing for other closely related coronaviruses that have caused severe disease in humans, namely MERS and SARS.
Scientists had not been concerned about this particular strain, as we did not know that it existed and could cause disease in humans until it started causing this outbreak.
How do scientists know when to work on a vaccine for a coronavirus? Work on vaccines for severe coronaviruses has historically begun once the viruses start infecting humans.
Given that this is the third major outbreak of a new coronavirus that we have had in the past two decades and also given the severity of disease caused by these viruses, we should consider investing in the development of a vaccine that would be broadly protective against these viruses.
More:
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2020/01/31/explainer-when-will-there-be-a-coronavirus-vaccine/
