Special Issue Article - Journal of Clinical Immunology Research (2020) Volume 0, Issue 0

Anti-Viral Vaccine Strategies in the Era of Pandemics: Lessons Learned From COVID-19

Disease outbreaks have ravaged humanity at many levels and sometimes have changed the course of history. RNA viruses (Influenza, Coronaviruses and others) have been main responsible of the deadliest pandemics during the last hundred years. Since 2003, two global outbreaks of coronaviruses have been observed and currently we are in the third coronavirus- associated pandemics (COVID-19). The current SARS-CoV-2 virus is showing higher infection fatality rate compared to SARS-CoV-1 and MERS and, only in 8 months 20  Million have been infected worldwide with over ¾ Million of deaths. Despite interventional strategies such as physical distancing, barrier methods and anti-viral drugs therapies, etc. Pandemic manifestations continue to surge around the world. Development of an effective immunoprophylactic and/or immunotherapeutic vaccine remains one of the best options in reducing the morbidity and mortality associated with pandemics. In this talk, I will be presenting the traditional and modern strategies used to control pandemics with more focus on what we are learning from the current race to produce COVID-19 vaccine. Also, I will highlight how the development of preemptive a pan-coronavirus vaccine will be the most important therapy against potentially future new emerging coronaviruses that will cause more deadly human pandemics.

 

Author(s): Aziz A. Chentoufi

Abstract PDF