IN RECENT WEEKS searches on Google for "contagion movie" have soared. In the film, a thriller from 2011, a virus spreads rapidly around the world, killing 26m people. The plot follows the frantic efforts of scientists to produce a vaccine. Some 133 days after the first infection, they succeed. In the real world most recent vaccines have taken years to develop. Some have taken more than a decade. Others, such as a vaccine to stop HIV, the virus that causes aids, still elude scientists. But technological innovations and a more streamlined development process could dramatically shrink the time it takes to produce a vaccine against a new pathogen that has the potential to cause an epidemic.
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