Corona will not disappear and will strike us in successive waves .. Will we succeed in developing a vaccine that will destroy it?

A WHO spokesperson said that the new coronavirus, which causes Covid-19 disease, is not likely to disappear on its own, as happened with the SARS epidemic in 2003, and that it may continue as waves. Will scientists be able to develop a vaccine? Break it?

Epidemiologist Margaret Harris, in comments to Anatolia, warned of the possibility of the new Corona virus "SARS Cove 2" spread through repeated waves.

Harris said the Coronavirus has spread to more than 200 countries and regions after the first cases appeared in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019.

She noted that the first cases of HIV infection in Europe were recorded on the 13th of last March, in the United States on the 24th of the same month, and in South America on the 27th of last May, and these regions represented new centers for the spread of the virus.

It reported that countries in the Americas, led by the United States, Brazil, Peru and Chile, are currently witnessing a significant increase in the number of injuries.

Sanitary measures

Regarding the rumors that the African continent might become the new epicenter of the outbreak of Corona, Harris said it remains unclear where the epicenter will be next.

"Many regions of the world are witnessing a large spread of the virus, but it is possible to reduce the speed of its spread by adhering to quarantine, hygiene and sterilization procedures."

She stressed the importance of measures such as medical examination, detection of people who had contact with the injured, and commitment to isolation and quarantine, in order to control the outbreak.

She called for keeping hands clean, and adhering to the rules of social divergence, and the rules for coughing and sneezing, the most important of which are covering the nose and mouth when sneezing or coughing with thick wipes or arm.

Possible waves

Regarding the possibility of the virus disappearing automatically, Harris did not accept this idea, unlike what happened with the SARS virus that appeared in parts of the world in 2003 before it disappeared.

In 2003, the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic caused nearly 8,000 infections, and about 800 people died.

The SARS virus belongs to the family of coronaviruses, and is the same family as the emerging coronavirus "SARS Cove 2".

"Although it is not known how the epidemic will evolve based on currently available data, the most likely scenario is that new (new) waves will occur, but at low levels. However, countries and societies can take measures to limit the transmission of the virus from one person to another," she added.

She said it is unlikely that an effective vaccine against Corona will be reached by the end of this year, and has indicated that the time required to produce a safe and effective vaccine is between 12 and 19 months at least.

A vaccine (vaccination) is a product that is given to a person to form immunity in his body against a specific disease, and it consists of disease germs that have been killed or weakened. And eliminate it immediately when he enters the body the next time.

The first wave recedes

On the other hand, with the receding of the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, this may create a problem for scientists working on developing a vaccine to eradicate the Corona virus, in a strange paradox.

Scientists in Europe and the United States say the relative success of strict isolation measures and social separation in some regions and countries means that virus transmission rates may reach levels as low as the prevalence of the disease below the level sufficient to conduct effective tests on potential vaccines.

Scientists may have to search farthest regions for the hot spots of the epidemic in Africa and Latin America to get convincing results.

"Ironically, if we are really successful in using public health methods to eliminate foci of viral infection, it will make it more difficult to test the vaccine," said Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health in the United States.

Scientists say conducting extensive (and human) clinical trials of potential vaccines for an entirely new disease (such as corona) is a complex process. Likewise, showing efficacy in those experiences during a pandemic in which conditions fluctuate increases the difficulty. Rather, the difficulty multiplies when seeking to accomplish that task while the epidemic recedes.

"For this to work, people must face the risk of infection in society. If the virus is temporarily eliminated, the attempt will be futile," said Iver Ali, an expert on drug use modification at the Warwick School of Business in Britain.

"The solution is to move to areas where infection is widespread in society, and that will be in countries like Brazil and Mexico at the moment," he added.

In vaccine experiments, people are randomly divided into a treatment group and a reference group, the first group receives the experimental vaccine, and the second group is a placebo.

All members of the two groups are mixed with the community where the disease is spread, and infection rates are then compared. Scientists hope that the rate of infection in the reference group is higher than in the treatment group, which shows that the experimental vaccine has protected the members of the treatment group.

With the decline of the epidemic in Britain, Europe and the United States, it has become a major task for scientists to search for areas of disease spread, and for volunteers in population sectors or in countries where the disease is still widespread.

A similar problem arose when scientists tried to experiment with new vaccines for Ebola during its widespread spread in West Africa in 2014. At that time, drug companies had to dramatically downgrade their plans because vaccines were only ready for testing late in the epidemic, when cases were declining.

Where did we get to develop a vaccine?

- In Moscow, the Russian Defense Ministry announced on Tuesday that it had begun testing a possible vaccine for the Corona virus on 50 volunteer soldiers at a military research facility in the Moscow region.

The ministry statement stated that the soldiers, including five women, had no recent medical history, and that they "voluntarily expressed their desire to participate in the experiment." The experiment will be completed by the end of this month.

In China, an anti-Coronavirus vaccine currently being developed is expected to be available by the end of this year. The vaccine, developed by the Beijing Institute of Biological Products in cooperation with the China National Biotechnology Group, completed the second phase of the tests, and may be ready for sale by the end of this year or early next year, according to the report published by the Asset Supervision and Management Authority State-owned China on its page on the Chinese website "Wei Chat".

A vaccine is currently being developed for the American company Moderna, and another vaccine is being developed by scientists at Oxford University with the support of AstraZeneca. The United States plans to begin, in July, extensive trials to uncover the effectiveness of the vaccine, in which between 20,000 and 30,000 volunteers per vaccine will participate.