Scientists embark on hunt for vaccines and medicines

As the whole nation joins efforts to fight the novel coronavirus outbreak, scientists in China have started efforts aimed at developing vaccines and drugs for the virus.

The Zhejiang Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention said on Monday it will soon start research and development of a vaccine against the novel coronavirus after managing to isolate strains of the virus on Friday.

Zhang Yanjun, director of the center's microbiological laboratory, said it obtained the qualification to undertake such research on Jan 22, and isolated the first strain from the sputum samples of a confirmed patient last week, paving the way for work on a vaccine and the development of anti-virus medicines and rapid test kits.