'SARS-CoV-2 will survive even with vaccine,' says Italian virologist

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23 November 2020

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Rome, Nov 23 (Prensa Latina) 'The vaccine alone will be insufficient to eradicate the Covid-19 pandemic, which takes advantage of every crack to reproduce,' said Italian researcher Maria Rosaria Capobianchi, who isolated the SARS-CoV-2 pathogen.

In an interview published by the Corriere della Sera newspaper, the head of the virology laboratory at the Lazzaro Sapallanzani Institute in Rome, noted that to avoid contagion, people's behaviors must change.

The specialist indicated that 'the adversary we face is powerful, but we met other more lethal ones' and recalled that not counting the plague, which occurred in 1600 - caused by a bacteria and not by a virus - the Spanish flu led to over 40 million deaths, and 500 million infections in cycles in 1918, like all pandemics.

When referring to possible cures, the expert pointed out that there are no therapies capable of defeating Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus, but only of containing its spread and as for the vaccine; she said, 'we are very close.'

However, scientists do not know how long the vaccine's effects are going to last; thus, it is likely to be annually repeated as the flu's.

In that sense, the virologist expressed that possibly 'the virus will not be defeated as happened with Sars-CoV in 2002, and therefore, I am afraid that we will have to cope with it for much longer and we will have seasons like the waves of influenza.'