Coronavirus and the prospects for an effective vaccine

Dr Higgins trained in Infectious Diseases at the Royal Adelaide Hospital and Flinders Medical Centre and in Microbiology and Virology at the Institute of Medical and Veterinary Science Adelaide (now SA Pathology). He completed a PhD in Virology at the University of Adelaide. After a 2 year  post doc in Cambridge UK, he returned to the IMVS in 1993 as a Medical Consultant in the Division of Virology where he has worked as a Clinical Virology, Head of Virology and then Clinical Director of the Microbiology and Infectious Directorate of SA Pathology. He has recently stepped down from the Director position but remains working part time as a Clinical Virologist. Dr Higgins has had a long term interest in developing and implementing molecular diagnostic techniques for routine pathology testing in hospital and general practices.  The establishment of high volume routine molecular testing at SA Pathology was one of the reasons SA  responded rapidly to the COVID 19 outbreak.

Dr Higgins will discuss the origins of COVID 19, its diagnosis, epidemiology and the emerging vaccines for its prevention.

SARS-CoV-19 (COVID 19) is a coronavirus that emerged in China in late 2019 and has subsequently spread worldwide causing a pandemic with significant morbidity, mortality and economic damage. The origin of the virus remain in dispute. There are at least 4 coronaviruses that circulate between humans and  cause generally mild winter respiratory illnesses. COVID 19, the closely related SARS  viruses that emerged in 2003 and the more distant MERS coronavirus (2012) that cause more severe disease appear to be of recent animal origin.  One of the keys to initial Public Health response to the epidemic has been the availability of sensitivity and specific diagnostics tests.   Of these molecular testing with results available in as little as 15 minutes, are the diagnostic test of choice. Timely nucleic acid sequencing assays have under pinned the epidemiological studies. Molecular techniques have also allowed the rapid development of vaccines and the variety of vaccines and their early efficacy results will be discussed.