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Human trials for a potential vaccine to prevent COVID-19 could begin “within a few weeks” with a vaccine ready for public use within the next 12 to 18 months, a top U.S. health official said Thursday. “We said ... that it would take two to three months to have it in the first human,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told the House Oversight and Reform Committee on Thursday at a hearing on the nation’s preparedness for the outbreak. (Lovelace and Higgins-Dunn, 3/12)

Nothing can stop a global outbreak in its tracks better than a vaccine. Unfortunately, creating a vaccine capable of preventing the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 will probably take at least a year to 18 months, health officials say. “That is the time frame,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told the House Oversight and Reform Committee this week. Anyone who says they can do it faster “will be cutting corners that would be detrimental.” (Khan, 3/12)

Dozens of drugmakers are scrambling to develop vaccines that could prevent people from contracting the new coronavirus, or therapies to treat people infected with the respiratory disease it causes. Testing of several potential drugs and vaccines has already started, and more trials are in the works. Additional studies could follow if researchers find that products approved for other uses, or even ones they discarded, show promise in their labs tackling the virus. “You’re seeing the industry wheel into action,” says Jeremy Levin, chairman of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization trade group and chief executive of Ovid Therapeutics Inc. (Hopkins, 3/12)