‘This May Not Be The Big One’: Army Scientists Warn of Deadlier Pandemics to Come
The service is closing in on a “pan-coronavirus” vaccine and on synthetic antibodies that could protect a population before spread. But that may not be enough.
Tara Copp | June 21, 2021
The U.S. Army scientists who have spent the last year finding vaccines and therapeutics to stop COVID-19 cautioned that the nation remains vulnerable to a viral pandemic—one that could be even deadlier than the current one.
Since the earliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the emerging infectious diseases branch at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research has worked to develop a vaccine that would help patients fend off not only the original virus strain but also new variants.
In initial tests on monkeys, horses, hamsters, and sharks, Walter Reed’s spike ferritin nanoparticle, or SpFN, vaccine has shown effectiveness against not only the current SARS-CoV-2 variants, but also against the completely different SARS-CoV-1 outbreak that occurred in 2003, the head of Walter Reed’s infectious diseases branch said at the Defense One 2021 Tech Summit Monday.
https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2021/06/may-not-be-big-one-army-scientists-warn-deadlier-pandemics-come/174853/