TWO years ago on Jan 12, 2020, Chinese scientists shared the genomic sequence of the virus that was causing a large outbreak of severe pneumonia in Wuhan. This enabled the development of diagnostic PCR (polymerase chain reaction) kits and a race to develop a vaccine against the disease.
On the back of decades of research in mRNA vaccine technology (M[essenger] RNA vaccines teach our cells how to make a protein that will trigger an immune response inside our bodies), two vaccines, (Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna), were successfully developed, underwent large clinical trials and received emergency use authorisation by the United State Federal Drug Administration by December 2020.
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