Developing pan-β-coronavirus vaccines against emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern

The concurrent prevalence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) raises the concern for the emergence of potential new beta-CoV clades via genetic recombination, bearing high SARS-CoV-2-like transmissibility and high MERS-CoV-like mortality rates. Therefore, we argue that there is an urgent need to develop pan-beta-CoV vaccines that can target not only current SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern, but also future putative SARS-CoV-3-or MERSCoV-2-like coronavirus.

Automated summary

The simultaneous presence of SARS-CoV-2 and MERS-CoV raises concerns about the potential emergence of new beta-coronavirus strains with high transmissibility similar to SARS-CoV-2 and high mortality rates similar to MERS-CoV. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop pan-beta-CoV vaccines capable of targeting not only current variants of concern, but also potential future coronaviruses resembling SARS-CoV-3 or MERSCoV-2.