Expert: Drugs to be used for treatment of new coronavirus

Several kinds of drugs will be used for clinical treatment of the novel coronavirus, said Zhong Nanshan, a respiratory expert now leading the panel on the outbreak for China's National Health Commission, adding that the safety of the drugs have been ensured, but their efficacy still need to be further confirmed.  

With more than 1,200 cased confirmed and more than 40 deaths so far, whether the epidemic will spread further has become a big concern for the public.  

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"It is not yet a national outbreak, there is no obvious chain reaction," Zhong told Guangzhou Daily, adding that the most effective means of prevention and control the outbreak for now is early detection and early isolation. 

"As long as people who get infected are quarantined in time, there will be fewer patients in later stages," said Zhong. "Fewer people infected, less chance of having super spreaders."

Amid the outbreak, an essay published on the U.S. medical journal JAMA on Thursday said that a candidate vaccine for the novel coronavirus could be ready for early-stage human testing in three months. 

Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Catharine Paules, an assistant professor of infectious diseases at Penn State University, said advances in technology since the SARS outbreak in 2003 have greatly shortened the vaccine development timeline. 

The researchers moved from obtaining the genomic sequence of SARS virus to a phase one clinical trial of a DNA vaccine in 20 months and have since reduced that timeline to 3.25 months for other viral diseases. 

The scientists hope to move even faster for the novel coronavirus, using messenger RNA vaccine technology, according to research authors. 

(With input from Xinhua)