The US Army is set to announce it has developed a single vaccine that provides protection against all variants of Covid-19 and the SARS virus.
According to reports, scientists at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research have been working on the vaccine for two years and they believe they’ve completed it. The official announcement could come within the next few weeks, Defense One first reported.
Researchers at the Institute began working on the vaccine, named SpFN, in early 2020 and set out to purposefully create a shot that would provide protection not just from the original Covid-19 strain, but all existing and potential variants, too.
They received positive results through animal testing this year and were approved to start human trials back in April. Dr. Kayvon Modjarrad, director of the Walter Reed Infectious Disease department, confirmed to Defense One that Phase I of trials against the Omicron and other variants were completed earlier this month.
So far, SpFN shows to provide broad protection against several Covid-19 and SARS variant.
Modjarrad said that the reason such a vaccine needed to be studied was due to the “accelerating emergences of human coronaviruses throughout the past two decades,” and the multiple variants of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes a Covid-19 infection) we’ve seen within the past two years alone.
“It’s very exciting to get to this point for our entire time and I think for the entire Army as well,” he added.
Phase I included testing the vaccine on people who had not been previously vaccinated against Covid-19 nor had they previously tested positive for the virus. The next phase will test SpFN on people who’ve been vaccinated or previously tested positive.
“With Omicron, there’s no way really to escape this virus. You’re not going to be able to avoid it. So I think pretty soon either the whole world will be vaccinated or have been infected,” Modjarrad said.
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