NIH scientists urge pursuit of universal coronavirus vaccine

A growing body of scientific evidence, considered together with ecological reality, strongly suggest that novel coronaviruses will continue to infect bats and other animal reservoirs and potentially emerge to pose a pandemic threat to humans. To counter future coronavirus outbreaks, the global scientific and medical research community should focus a major effort now on three goals: characterize the range of coronavirus genetic diversity in multiple animal species; better understand coronavirus disease pathogenesis in laboratory animal models and people; and apply this knowledge to the development of long-lasting, broadly protective coronavirus vaccines. So argue physician-scientists Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., Jeffery K. Taubenberger, M.D., Ph.D., and David M. Morens, M.D., of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, in a new commentary in The New England Journal of Medicine. The authors call for an international collaborative effort to extensively sample coronaviruses from bats as...