Scientists create pandemic-preventing jab against unknown coronaviruses
Scientists at three top universities have come up with a vaccine to fight off coronaviruses that are not yet known to humans.
Scientists have come up with a vaccine that works on coronaviruses "we don't even know about yet".
Boffins at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, as well as Caltech in California, are determined to create a jab that can fight off pathogens before they even threaten another global pandemic.
The experimental vaccine has only been tested on mice so far but it works by making the immune system recognise parts of several different coronaviruses - including COVID-19, SARS and MERS.
The jab could mean that people are protected from multiple coronaviruses with just a single vaccine, even types that scientists are unaware of at present.
Rory Hills, a graduate researcher at the University of Cambridge's department of pharmacology, said: "Our focus is to create a vaccine that will protect us against the next coronavirus pandemic, and have it ready before the pandemic has even started.
"We've created a vaccine that provides protection against a broad range of different coronaviruses - including ones that we don't even know about yet."
