WASHINGTON — Scientists at the Walter Reed Army Research Institute have promising new data indicating their vaccine will work against significant mutations of COVID-19, as well as entirely different coronaviruses, an achievement that other vaccines so far have not accomplished.
The data has yet to be peer reviewed. But the Army lab is hopeful that a pan-coronavirus vaccine is achievable after testing the drug on SARS, a coronavirus that emerged in 2003 with significant biological differences from the current pandemic disease known as SARS-CoV-2.
Tests of the vaccine against both SARS as well as emerging variants of COVID-19 have shown “very good responses,” said Dr. Kayvon Modjarrad, director of Walter Reed’s Emerging Infectious Diseases Branch.
