SARS vaccine trial could start in a few months – WHO

A vaccine for the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) will not be available if an epidemic should recur at the end of the year, but the first clinical trial of a vaccine could begin as early as January 2004, health experts convened by the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) have concluded.

After a two-day review of research progress, the WHO Consultation on SARS Vaccine Research and Development said a resurgence of the illness could speed up research and result in a vaccine within two years. Without a new outbreak, the vaccine would follow the classical development path and not be ready for four to five years.

In the meantime, “we must be ready to manage a possible resurgence of SARS through the control measures that work – surveillance, early diagnosis, hospital infection control, contact tracing and international reporting. Research must continue to determine if, how, and how soon a vaccine will add to these existing control measures," WHO Director-General Lee Jong-wook said.

The group of 50 experts from 15 countries examined what is known of how the SARS coronavirus causes human disease, the factors involved in choosing the best genetic strains for future vaccines and the help or the hindrance raised by patent and intellectual property issues.

The consultants also reviewed recent work on experimental vaccines in animals and how that information could be used to initiate clinical trials in human volunteers. But human trials might be inappropriate, given the severity of the disease, its relatively rare occurrence and the urgency of the search for inoculation, they said.

“SARS might have to be licensed in the absence of efficacy data generated in humans,” they concluded.

Dr. Marie-Paule Kieny, Director of the WHO Initiative for Vaccine Research, said, “If we are to develop a SARS vaccine more quickly than usual, we have to continue to work together on many fronts at once, on scientific research, intellectual property and patents issues, and accessibility. It is a very complicated process, involving an unprecedented level of international cooperation, which is changing the way we work.”