WHO: There Are 7 Or 8 Top Candidates for Developing Coronavirus Vaccine

By Staff, Agencies

Director General of the World Health Organization [WHO] Tedros Adhanom said overnight Monday there are seven or eight leading contestants for developing a COVID-19 vaccine.

Speaking to the UN Economic and Social Council in a video conference call, Adhanom said despite initial estimations that discovering a vaccine would take 12 to 18 months, an accelerated effort could yet shorten that time span significantly.

An $8 billion pledge of leaders from 40 countries, organizations and banks for research, treatment and testing, while not being enough, according to Adhanom, has sped up the process of finding a coronavirus vaccine.

Adhanom, however, did not name the top candidates.

Meanwhile, Executive Director of the WHO’s Health Emergencies Program Dr. Michael Ryan sounded a warning to countries that are reopening their economies “blindly.” He said governments are not taking into account there could be an outbreak of the novel coronavirus in a second wave.

Dr. Ryan lauded the German and South Korean method of creating tools meant for tracking COVID-19 patients in order to monitor and stop the spread of the virus.