RIYADH: A two-day World Conference for MERS-CoV Vaccine Research kicked off Saturday at the King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology (KACST).

The Kingdom leads six other participating countries with 59 delegates. Others include the United States with 28 delegates, Canada (5), Germany (4), China (3), and the Netherlands (3).

The conference, which is being held under the auspices of Health Minister Khalid Al-Falih, will formulate policies to produce a vaccine for MERS.

Ahmed Alhersi, KACST scientific advisory board chairman, said the conference reflects a global presence to show that the whole world is “doing its best to have a vaccine against coronavirus.”

He said that the main objective of the conference is to review the research and make a “filter” for vaccines and have access to a more effective production.

“The conference, which ends Sunday, has 19 initiatives to produce a vaccine. These include four American firms and 15 scientists,” he said.

He added that it’s difficult at this stage to estimate the cost of producing a vaccine. However, he said that some $200 million has been set aside for the production of the “Abiola” vaccine.

“The cost of developing and producing new vaccines is very high. To make matters worse, investment in the research may not be that attractive,” he said.


He expressed hope that the conference may engender interest so that “it creates a kind of global competition that would reduce the costs of developing and producing a vaccine.”

He added that research for an effective vaccine against coronavirus is not easy as it goes through many stages and accurate tests.

“The development of vaccines against an infectious pathogen, or infectious agent, is very complex, time consuming and costly,” he said.

He added that there are also different degrees of complexity depending on the type of virus or bacteria targeted by vaccine.

He also said that research for the development of vaccines around the world is conducted through multiple partnerships among prestigious academic institutions and companies specializing in the manufacture of vaccines.

The Kingdom is represented in the conference by the Ministry of Health, KACST, and Ministry of Agriculture.

Other representatives include the World Health Organization, US Institute of Health, Qatar Charity Foundation, Samsung, and the World Institute for Vaccine Research of the United Nations.