U.S. Warns That China, Iran Have Been Launching Cyberattacks On Firms Developing Vaccines
The alleged hacks raise the prospect among some officials that the aggression could be viewed by the Trump administration as a direct attack on U.S. public health and tantamount to an act of war. In other news, The Hill explores where four top vaccine contenders stand, research into the promise of old vaccines and experts call for global COVID-19 unit.
The Wall Street Journal:
Chinese, Iranian Hacking May Be Hampering Search For Coronavirus Vaccine, Officials Say
Chinese and Iranian hackers are aggressively targeting American universities, pharmaceutical and other health-care firms in a way that could be hampering their efforts to find a vaccine to counter the coronavirus pandemic, U.S. officials said. Since at least Jan. 3, the two countries have waged cyberattacks against a range of American firms and institutions that are working to find a vaccine for Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, officials said. (Lubold and Volz, 5/13)
The Hill:
What You Need To Know About Four Potential COVID-19 Vaccines
The coronavirus pandemic has set off an unprecedented global scramble for a vaccine. There are more than 100 potential vaccine candidates, according to the World Health Organization, but only eight have entered the crucial clinical trials stage. Four are in the United States and Europe, with the rest in China. “I can never remember anything like this,” Walter Orenstein, associate director of the vaccine center at Emory University in Atlanta, said of the number of vaccines being developed to tackle one disease. “Hopefully, at least one and hopefully more than one will prove to be safe and effective.” (Sullivan, 5/12)
The Wall Street Journal:
Old Vaccine Gets New Look In Tests For Coronavirus Protection
Trials have begun on what researchers say could be a stopgap vaccination against the new coronavirus, testing a century-old tuberculosis vaccine on thousands of people including police in India, health-care workers in Texas and elderly people in the Netherlands. The trials intend to determine whether the vaccine known as BCG, which is used in most of the world outside the U.S. and Western Europe, offers protection against Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus. (Bhattacharya and Forero, 5/13)
CIDRAP:
Experts: We Must Cooperate To Develop, Deploy COVID-19 Vaccines
Development of vaccines against COVID-19 hinges on "unprecedented" and transparent cooperation among industry, government, and academia, according to a commentary by Anthony Fauci, MD, and Francis Collins, MD, PhD, of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and two other US vaccine experts published yesterday in Science. Noting that all vaccine platforms have advantages and disadvantages and underscoring the need for speed and flexibility of manufacture, safety, long-term efficacy, scale, affordability, vaccine stability, and a temperature-controlled supply chain, they said that "no single vaccine or vaccine platform alone is likely to meet the global need, and so a strategic approach to the multi-pronged endeavor is absolutely critical." (Van Beusekom, 5/12)
Meanwhile, pandemic survivors offer advice —
NPR:
Survivors On The Parallels Between Polio And Coronavirus Epidemics
A fear of the unknown. The need to maintain an appropriate distance. An urgent desire to find a cure or vaccine. They're the hallmarks of the coronavirus pandemic, but they also characterized an earlier epidemic: when paralysis-causing polio ravaged the U.S. in the 1940s and '50s. Now, the toddlers and preteens of that era are once again part of a high-risk group during a deadly epidemic of a highly infectious disease. (Mittal, 5/12)
