Juan Andres woke up three times during the night after putting his precious vials of vaccine on the back of a delivery lorry. In late February, Moderna, a biotech group based outside Boston, smashed the record for the fastest time between identifying a virus — in this case Covid-19 coronavirus — and creating a vaccine ready to test in humans: just 42 days.
在把几瓶珍贵的疫苗送上货车后那一夜，胡安•安德烈斯(Juan Andres)醒了三次。2月下旬，Moderna创下了疫苗研发的最快纪录，从识别病毒——新型冠状病毒——到研发出可用于人体测试的疫苗仅用了42天。Moderna是一家生物技术公司，总部位于波士顿附近。
In the lab, the team had been excited but in the early hours Mr Andres, a 30-year pharma veteran in charge of manufacturing, was nervously checking his phone to track the lorry carrying the potential vaccine to a discreet location. There the US National Institutes of Health would start the trial to test whether it works.
之前在实验室里，整个团队一直很兴奋，但负责制造疫苗、有30年制药业经验的安德烈斯那天深夜还在紧张地查看他的手机，追踪货车的位置——那辆货车将把潜在的疫苗送至一个妥善地点。在这里，美国国家卫生研究院(National Institutes of Health)将展开试验，测试疫苗是否有效。
“The pride comes from this [being] a race,” he says. “Doing this as fast as possible is something that is a duty.” Once they were sure the vaccine had arrived safely, the team celebrated with ice cream. At least 100 Moderna staff worked on the project but Mr Andres says everyone is excited to be involved, even people’s families. “I can’t remember the last time my 15-year-old thought I did something cool,” he laughs.
安德烈斯说：“我们的自豪感来自于这是一场竞赛。尽快研发出疫苗已经成了一项责任。”确认疫苗已安全到达后，整个团队立刻开始吃冰淇淋庆祝。Moderna至少有100名员工参与了该项目，但安德烈斯表示所有相关的人都很兴奋，包括他们的家人。他笑着说：“我都不记得上一次我15岁的孩子觉得我干了一件很酷的事是什么时候。”
Moderna is one of more than 20 companies and public sector organisations worldwide racing to develop a vaccine against Covid-19, which in little more than two months has exploded from a few people suffering from respiratory disease in the Chinese city of Wuhan to a near-pandemic with 95,000 cases and 3,300 deaths worldwide so far.
目前全球有逾20家公司及公共部门组织在争分夺秒地研发新冠肺炎(Covid-19)疫苗，Moderna是其中之一。一开始只是在中国武汉市出现了几名呼吸道疾病患者，在两个多月的时间里，新冠肺炎就迅速演变成几乎是一场世界大流行(pandemic)。截至英文稿件发表时，全球已有9.5万个确诊病例，3300例死亡。（截至北京时间3月9日凌晨4点23分，全球累计确诊病例109635例，累计死亡3801人——编者注）
The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations — a partnership of governments, industry and charities, created three years ago to fight emerging diseases that threaten global health — is already sponsoring four Covid-19 vaccine projects, including Moderna’s. It is also on the point of signing contracts for four more, says Richard Hatchett, CEPI chief executive. He estimates that developing Covid-19 vaccines at the speed required will cost about $2bn over the next 12-18 months.
三年前，为了抗击威胁全球健康的新疾病，多地政府、业界和多个慈善机构联合成立了流行病防范创新联盟(CEPI)。该联盟已赞助了四个新冠肺炎疫苗项目，Moderna的也在其中。流行病防范创新联盟首席执行官理查德•哈切特(Richard Hatchett)表示，该联盟马上要再签四个新冠肺炎疫苗项目的合同。他估计，要足够快地开发出新冠肺炎疫苗，需要在未来12到18个月内花费20亿美元。
Moderna is off to the fastest start, Dr Hatchett believes, but several others are close behind. “We received 48 applications from all over the world following our call for proposals in February,” he adds. “There is a real sense of urgency . . . because the threat we are facing is unprecedented in the last 100 years in terms of its speed and potential severity,” he says, referring to the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic.
哈切特认为Moderna起步最快，但其他几个项目紧随其后。他说：“自2月份征求计划书以来，我们收到了来自世界各地的48份申请。大家都有种真正的急迫感……因为就传播速度和潜在严重性来说，我们正面临的威胁是百年不遇的。”他说，意思是上一次世界大流行还是1918年西班牙流感。