Tesco
Stocking the Shelves for the Next Pandemic
Article

Stocking the Shelves for the Next Pandemic

Despite previous warnings, drug makers failed to prepare a stockpile of compounds to fight viral pandemics. Can they finally do the right thing?

Elie Dolgin
Nature, 2021
Read the article

Read or listen offline

  • 0.5×
  • 0.75×
  • 1×
  • 1.25×
  • 1.5×
  • 1.75×
1×

Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

  • Applicable
  • Concrete Examples

Recommendation

Humanity was entirely unprepared for COVID-19. Although other coronaviruses have crossed from animals to cause pandemics in the recent past, as soon as those pandemics faded away, any efforts to combat the responsible viruses faded away with them. This time, governments and pharmaceutical companies are banding together to make sure that that doesn’t happen again. As COVID-19 fades, hopefully people will retain the impetus to develop, find and, most importantly, test new antivirals. That way, people will be a bit more prepared for the next scourge when it arrives.

Take-Aways

  • The NIH developed the Antiviral Drug Discovery and Development Center to screen drugs for activity against viruses.
  • Viruses contain few components and mutate rapidly, so antivirals are hard to find and develop.
  • The COVID R&D Alliance aims to test drugs now to prepare for future outbreaks.

About the Author

Elie Dolgin is a freelance science writer, editor and podcaster in Somerville, Massachusetts. His work has appeared in Nature, Science, Newsweek, Discover, STAT and Nautilus.

Comment on this summary or Diskussion beginnen