The first human trial to evaluate a candidate vaccine against the new coronavirus has begun in Seattle, US health officials said Monday, raising hopes in the global fight against the disease.
But it may be another year to 18 months before it becomes available, once it has passed more trial phases to prove it works and is safe.
The vaccine is called mRNA-1273 and was developed by US National Institutes of Health (NIH) scientists and collaborators at biotechnology company Moderna, which is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Test every suspected case
The World Health Organization called Monday for countries to test every suspected case of COVID-19, as the rest of the world registered more cases and deaths in the pandemic than China.
“You cannot fight a fire blindfolded,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters in a virtual press conference from the UN agency’s headquarters in Geneva.
“In the past week, we have seen a rapid escalation of cases of COVID-19,” he said, as the global death toll in the pandemic soared past 7,000.
Travel ban
European leaders are set to ban non-essential travel into the continent on Tuesday, the latest drastic attempt to curb the coronavirus pandemic that has upended society, battered markets and killed thousands around the world.
With French President Emmanuel Macron describing the battle against COVID-19 as a “war”, governments around the world are imposing restrictions rarely seen in peace-time, slamming borders shut and forcing citizens to stay home.
The crisis is infecting every sector of the economy and Wall Street stocks sank on Monday more than 12 percent in the worst session since the crash of 1987, despite emergency interventions by central banks and governments to shore up confidence.
Capacity cut
Australian airline Qantas announced Tuesday it was slashing its international capacity by 90 percent and domestic flights by 60 percent in a further coronavirus blow to the beleaguered travel industry.
Facing a growing list of travel bans around the globe and a “precipitous decline in demand”, Qantas said the cutbacks would continue until at least the end of May.
They affect both Qantas flights and those of its budget carrier Jetstar and will impact the company’s entire 30,000 staff.
20 more cases
China reported on Tuesday just one new domestic coronavirus infection but found 20 more cases imported from abroad, threatening to spoil its progress against the disease.
The single case in Wuhan will boost China’s view that it has “basically curbed” the spread of a disease that is believed to have emerged in a live animal market in the central city in December.
Wuhan and its 11 million people were placed under strict quarantine on Jan. 23, with the rest of Hubei province going under lockdown in the following days.
