No coronavirus vaccine for entire world until 2024... at best: CEO of producer
WASHINGTON - Adar Poonawalla, the chief executive officer of the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, said in an interview Monday that the world will likely have to wait until the end of 2024 for total inoculation from the coronavirus -- at best.
Poonawalla, the head of the Serum Institute of India, told the Financial Times that he understands that the world is looking for optimism in the fight against the virus, but pharmaceutical companies are nowhere close to producing a vaccine on the massive scale required. He said his company has committed to producing a billion doses, but he said the world could need 15 billion.
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Pharmecustial companies around the world are devoting a historic amount of resources to find a vaccine for the virus that has killed 920,000 worldwide and infected nearly 30,000,000. There is no vaccine.
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Scientists at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine announced a possible breakthrough and said they’ve isolated “the smallest biological molecule” that “completely and specifically neutralizes” the virus.
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“It’s going to take four to five years until everyone gets the vaccine on this planet,” he told the paper.