Development of vaccines and tests for SARS-CoV-2

1. Rapid test infrastructure and vaccine development

While the pandemic still seemed a long way off in Switzerland, researchers in Germany already developed the first test infrastructure for SARS-CoV-2 in January 2020. It took a few more weeks before the first wave of the virus swept across Europe. And in March, a market-ready test was already available from Roche. The test technology has since seen rapid improvements – testing for Covid-19 today is cheap, less invasive and also reliable. It took just one year before effective vaccines became available: the first effective vaccines were available at the end of 2020 and thus only twelve months after the pathogen was identified at the end of 2019. Usually, it takes between six and fifteen years from development through regulatory approval to market launch of a vaccine.