CEO of Novartis – no vaccine for coronavirus within 12 months

Following the severe coronavirus outbreak, which has covered China and other countries; the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the virus to be a global health emergency.

A large number of flights to and from China have been suspended, due to the disease spreading rapidly across the country over the past ten days, killing at least two hundred and thirteen people in China, with at least ten thousand cases nationwide. Moreover, the WHO has confirmed the virus has been detected in eighteen other nations, including Sri Lanka, Philippines, the United States, Vietnam, Australia, South Korea, Thailand, the United Kingdom, and France, with at least ninety-eight cases reported and at least one death.

Novartis’ CEO has announced that as an international whole, we should be taking this matter seriously as he believes, there will be no vaccine to treat the virus within twelve months.

He stated: “The reality is, it will take over a year in my expectation to really find a new vaccine for this so, we need to really use epidemiological controls to really get this situation in a better place. One of the challenges is when these epidemics happen, or these situations happen, there is a lot of interest and there is a lot of activity but then we go back to a place where they are not happening anymore and everyone kind of loses interest and the investment then flows out. So, the question is, how do you keep the investment in place in the troughs of interest in pandemics and these kinds of outbreaks? … That’s a challenge. I continue to believe governments need to maintain high levels of preparedness, regardless of whether we have one of these outbreaks or not.”