The Chinese team working on developing a vaccine to fight Wuhan’s coronavirus said on Tuesday that it hopes to begin testing in less than 40 days, the state agency Xinhua said.
At least 106 people died and more than 4,000 were infected with the new coronavirus detected at the end of the year in Wuhan, the capital of central China’s Hubei province.
In the vaccine project, announced just two days ago, Shanghai Oriental Hospital – linked to Tongji University – and the city’s biotechnology company Stemirna Therapeutics participate.
Li Hangwen, chief executive of the company, said today that it will not take more than 40 days to manufacture the vaccine samples, which will then be sent to run tests at medical centers, but did not indicate a date for their arrival on the market.
American pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson has also started to develop a vaccine, although the deadlines indicated by the head of its scientific team, Paul Stoffels, are much less optimistic.
Stoffels said that it may take a year for the product to reach the market.