（竖版视频全屏观看） 截至2月11日24时，全国新冠肺炎累计确诊病例已超44,000人。在这样一个特殊的时刻，世界各国的科研和医护人员都在致力于疫苗研发。 然而，新冠病毒疫苗研发之路充满挑战，这无疑是一场在科学和病毒间展开的赛跑。 近日，CGTN记者独家探访英国帝国理工学院新型冠状病毒疫苗研究实验室，为我们带来学术界疫苗研发的最新消息。 As recorded cases pass 40,000 people, scientists, private companies and governments around the world are racing to develop a vaccine to fight the novel coronavirus. It's a challenge that requires unprecedented global cooperation, a union of public and private enterprises and a suspension of political and scientific norms. Coronaviruses present unique challenges that make vaccine development problematic. They are among one of the diverse groups of viruses affecting a variety of animals and mutated strains are emerging unpredictably. Existing drugs, like those developed to vaccinate against coronaviruses SARS and MERS, are not necessarily effective against new strains. Race for development 疫苗是病毒的克星，但它的诞生之路并不容易。 世卫组织发言人林德·梅尔表示，疫苗从研发到上市需要经过三个阶段。首先，研究小组需要确定构成这支疫苗的“最核心成分”，而这一过程所需的时间通常无法预估。在这之后，疫苗将进入多轮动物和人体临床试验阶段，试验成功的疫苗最后才能被投入生产，而这一过程通常需要“六到九个月的时间”。 There are three main stages for developing vaccines, says Christian Lindmeier, a spokesperson for the World Health Organization (WHO): Research teams must first identify "the best components" for the vaccine, which could take "any amount of time"; following which, rounds of ethical animal and human trials will be conducted; and, lastly, the successful vaccine will go into production – which could take anything from "six to nine months.” 林德·梅尔表示，虽然还不能确定此次新冠病毒疫苗何时能被生产出来，但预计最快也要到明年。 For Lindmeier, while it's "impossible" to know when a vaccine might be developed, it should not be expected before next year. 日前，英国伦敦帝国学院粘膜感染和免疫学学科负责人罗宾·沙托克教授透露，在中国分享新型冠状病毒基因序列后不久，他带领的疫苗研发团队通过努力，在研发新冠病毒疫苗方面取得重大突破。 Infection specialist Robin Shattock, a professor at Imperial College London, is leading one of the teams using the virus sequence that was shared by Chinese authorities to develop a vaccine. 沙托克表示，“我们已经在14天内从这个序列中找到了一个候选疫苗方案。我们将于下周开始在动物身上测试疫苗，我们也将同时寻求资金支持以便尽早开始人体试验。” 据介绍，传统方法通常至少需要两到三年才能临床试验。但现在科学家已打破常规，可以在14天内就得到一支候选疫苗。 "We've gone from that sequence to making a vaccine candidate in 14 days, we're putting it into animal candidates next week and we will be looking for funding to rush that into human testing," Shattock told CGTN Europe. The processes behind vaccine development have been accelerated following the outbreak of the 2013-16 Ebola virus. In 2017, the public-private Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) was launched to develop vaccines beyond the constraints of the private pharmaceutical market and states. Streamlined approval 在美国，一项疫苗获得审批许可可能需要长达八到十年的时间。然而，在疫情仍处于蔓延趋势的当下，这样的时间区间毫无疑问不再可行，加快疫苗研制进度刻不容缓。 Approval times for vaccinations vary. In the U.S., the process can take up to eight years as the drug goes for various clinical, ethical trials. Previous time frames are not workable should the new coronavirus continue to spread at its current rate. 英国雷丁大学免疫学家告诉CGTN，“在过去的五年里，全世界在加快疫苗研制进度方面有一致的认可，一些常规的、极其耗时的文书步骤都被加快，每一条能走的捷径也都被相应采取。” The reaction to the Ebola outbreak – in which 11,323 died, mainly in Western Africa – has been informative for the scientific community. Alexander Edwards, an immunologist at the University of Reading, told CGTN Europe: "Over the past five years, there's been a global agreement that we need to do something about the slow development of vaccines, so every step that can be time consuming, particularly the regulatory steps, paperwork steps are definitely accelerated." He added: "You can be assured that every shortcut that can be found will be taken. "What you have to balance that against if we have an entirely new unknown medicine, and we have to make sure that it's safe." Money to be made, lives to be saved 在疫苗生产上，药物和生物科技领域起着极为重要的作用。世卫组织发言人林德·梅尔表示，“全世界的科学家以及生产商需要进行有效合作，以此加快推进疫苗进入生产环节。” The pharmaceutical and biotech industries are vital to the production of a vaccine. "There needs to be a strong collaboration between the world's scientists and then, of course, the manufacturers, to get it into production," said Lindmeier. 当下，疫情蔓延使金融市场受到冲击，但疫苗生产商的股价却正在飙升。 Depending on the size of the outbreak, vaccines can also lead to financial windfalls for producers. 目前，正在与流行病防范创新联盟（CEPI）合作研发新冠病毒疫苗的美国生物医药公司摩登那（Moderna）——其股价在过去几周中上涨了10%。与此同时，与美国卫生部合作的美国再生元制药公司（Regeneron Pharmaceutical），在它宣布将于数月后进行人体临床试验后，其股价也在上周迅速上涨13%。 Stocks in U.S. biotechnology company Moderna, which is developing a coronavirus vaccine with CEPI, have risen more than 10 percent in the weeks following the outbreak. While stock in Regeneron Pharmaceutical, which is developing a vaccine alongside the U.S. department of health, soared 13 percent last week after the company announced it would be ready to test its drug on humans in a matter of months. 如何在经济利益与公众服务中寻找平衡？这也是药物行业一个由来已久的难题。 2018年，著名投资银行高盛（Goldman Sachs）发布了一份针对生物技术领域的调查报告，报告中提到的一点颇具争议性——“治愈患者是一种可持续的商业模式吗？” 这份报告以近年来备受瞩目的基因疗法为例，进一步讨论提供“一次性治疗方法”的商业模式对于医疗药品公司而言，到底算不算是一门好生意。报告中称，快速甚至一次性治愈患者，医药公司将难以保证自己的利润，因为市场总体趋势将会是萎缩的。同时，对于医药和生物科技公司而言，疫苗市场本身也存在局限性，因为很可能当疫苗被研制出来后，疫情早已结束。 Balancing profits with public service is a long-standing issue in the pharmaceutical industry. An infamous 2018 report from Goldman Sachs titled Is curing patients a sustainable business model? garnered plenty of negative press, while companies that produce successful treatments one year can be financially ruined the next. The report warned, in reference to a successful hepatitis C treatment, that: "Curing existing patients also decreases the number of carriers able to transmit the virus to new patients." A pharmaceutical or biotech company can find there is a limited market for vaccines, a one-off purchase, compared with widespread conditions such as cancer. A company can also be reluctant to mass produce a vaccine only to find, by the time the vaccine is available, the outbreak is over. 对此，德国冠状病毒研究专家罗尔夫·希尔根菲尔德教授提出了一些应对办法。 作为冠状病毒领域的资深研究者，2003年非典疫情爆发后，希尔根菲尔德团队的研究成果曾是学术界关注的焦点，为抗击非典做出了许多贡献。 他表示，他的团队已经研发出能同时抑制冠状病毒和多种肠道病毒的实验物质，这样就有可能形成充足的市场需求，也能在下次疫情来临时尽快将药物投入使用。 A solution to expand the market for vaccinations was laid out by Rolf Hilgenfeld in the scientific journal, Nature. Hilgenfeld, a coronavirus research expert at the University of Lübeck, in Germany, has been trying to develop coronavirus vaccines since the 2002-03 SARS outbreak. He and his team have recently created compounds that not only fight coronaviruses but are also effective against a large group of enteroviruses, one of which (enterovirus-71) affects half a million children annually. "We can get pharma involved. Then, if we have something approved for those, we can use the drug quickly next time there is a coronavirus outbreak," Hilgenfeld told Nature. 除此之外， 国际间合作也是重要一环。 英国智库查塔姆研究所国际健康项目负责人奥斯曼·达尔表示，由于竞争和种种原因，国际研究小组之间的技术合作有待加强。 他呼吁全球各界，包括研究人员、医疗机构和私人企业间加深合作共享，并表示世界卫生组织也在努力加深国际间疫苗领域发展的协同及合作，以此造福全人类。 A further problem can be cooperation. Osman Dar, director of the Global Health program's One Health project at Chatham House, told CGTN Europe: "It's still quite a competitive space and there's not been enough technological transfer between specialist groups." In a pandemic, these issues can come to the fore. Dar explained that: "Even if you have a vaccine ... who gets access to the vaccine, which countries is it being produced in and manufactured in, often those countries will say 'we need to keep these for ourselves, in case millions of people in our country get affected.'" In Dar's ideal scenario, "each global region has its own capacity to assess and diagnose – the laboratories, skills and technologies – to both be able to detect and also to develop vaccines, diagnostic tests and also have the manufacturing capacity." Dar called for a furthering of cooperation between researchers, medical institutions and private companies. While currently there are a lack of "international agreements, which allows for the distributions and sharing of vaccines," he explained, the WHO has been attempting to "bring a bit of synergy to vaccine development for the benefit of humanity."