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Science In Action: Covid-19 vaccines

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Covid -19 Vaccines

21/05/2020 GMT

Covid-19 vaccines

BBC World Service - Science In Action, Covid-19 vaccines

More than a hundred vaccines are in development to fight the virus

There are more than 100 different  Covid-19 vaccine trials currently going on. We look at which seem to be the most promising with Helen Branswell from Stat News.

And we examine a  very old idea, using antibodies from one virus – in this case Sars, to counter another virus Sars-CoV-2 , which causes Covid-19. Davide Corti from Vir Biotechnology says a version of these antibodies offers potential for both vaccination and treatment. 

Race and Covid-19, there seems to be a link between ethnicity and susceptibility to the virus which can’t be easily explained away by economic factors. That's the finding from a study of nearly six million people in the US conducted by epidemiologist Chris Rentsch from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. 

And social distancing in ancient times, how plagues and pandemics in the past seem to have been defeated using similar behavioural adaptations to those we are current employing. Archaeologist Shadreck Chikure has seen the evidence in sites across Africa.


(Image:Vaccine trials Credit: Getty Images)    


Presenter: Roland Pease
Producer: Julian Siddle

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