AUSTRALIA: The world will have to wait for at least one year to have an anti-COVID-19 vaccine in the market to tackle the Coronavirus that has caused over 30,000 deaths to date globally.
Speaking exclusively to Herald Mahadesh Prasad, a scientist from Karnataka, who is part of the CoVID-19 Vaccine Task Force at Belgium constituted to develop a vaccine for Coronavirus, said the situation is quite tricky at the moment and added we have very efficient antivirals and they are extensively used in patients right now and many more in testing.
“We will have to wait for four to six months to see some promising results from vaccines which are under testing. So altogether, may be in one year we might have a vaccine in the market and we should hope for the best,” stated Prasad, who has a PhD Degree in Biochemistry from the University of Mysore.
Presently, he is a scientist at Rega Institute of Virology and Chemotherapy, at the University of Leuven, Belgium and was included in the team based on his previous extensive research expertise in developing vaccine for ZIKA virus.
“Considering the statistics available from India till today, India is doing a great job. We are nearing a phase where the peak of infection will be flattened,” claimed Prasad and added considering the world scenario the death rate might go up to 0.1 million if not controlled in one month.
Interestingly, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has come forward to provide samples of 15,000 therapeutic molecules to the Gasthuisberg Hospital at the University of Leuven, to aid research into therapies to combat the COVID-19, informed Prasad hoping that among these 15,000 substances, there are one or more molecules that can slow down the novel Coronavirus.
“The damage due to Coronavirus depends completely on how we handle the situation, each one has a great responsibility to contain the virus from last pandemic H1N1 Swine Flu we lost almost 0.2 million people so it depends upon how we handle the situation on an everyday basis,” revealed Prasad, who is working overtime at the ultra-bio-safe Rega Laboratory, perhaps the only one in the world that can test thousands of candidate molecules at high speed, one after the other and safely and works fully automatically, and can be left to run 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Prasad’s brother Komal Kumar is also a scientist in Finland and is working to find a medicine for cancer.
