Israeli scientists claims coronavirus vaccine will be available in 90 days

JERUSALEM: Claiming to have achieved a breakthrough, Ofir Akunis, Israeli Minister of Science and Technology announced that Israeli scientists are on the cusp of developing the world’s first vaccine against the novel coronavirus. According to a release by the Ministry, if all goes as hour of crisis planned, the vaccine could be ready within a few weeks and available in 90 days.

Akunis congratulated MIGAL (The Galilee Research Institute) on the breakthrough and said that there will be rapid progress which will enable the world in providing a much needed response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Since the past four years, a team of MIGAL scientists have been developing a vaccine against Infectious Bronchitus Virus (IBV). The disease causes a bronchial disease affecting poultry. The effectiveness of the vaccine has been proven in preclinical trials carried out at the Veterinary Institute.

“Our basic concept was to develop the technology and not specifically a vaccine for this kind or that kind of virus,” said Dr. Chen Katz, MIGAL’s biotechnology group leader. “The scientific framework for the vaccine is based on a new protein expression vector, which forms and secretes a chimeric soluble protein that delivers the viral antigen into mucosal tissues by self-activated endocytosis, causing the body to form antibodies against the virus.”

Katz further said that in preclinical tests, the team demonstrated that the oral vaccination induces high levels of specific anti-IBV antibodies. But after scientists sequenced the DNA of the novel coronavirus causing the current worldwide outbreak, the MIGAL researchers examined it and found that the poultry coronavirus has high genetic similarity to the human one, and that it uses the same infection mechanism, which increases the likelihood of achieving an effective human vaccine in a very short period of time, Katz said.

“All we need to do is adjust the system to the new sequence,” he said. “We are in the middle of this process, and hopefully in a few weeks we will have the vaccine in our hands.” Akunis said that he has instructed the Director General of MIGAL to fast track all approval processes related to the vaccine trials with the goal of bringing the human vaccine to market as quickly as possible.

It will be an oral vaccine, making it particularly accessible to the general public.