Amid the understandable panic and concern over the current coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, it is some comfort to see the scientific and medical communities making Herculean efforts to establish a sensible, evidence-based way through to reduce the number of deaths as much as possible.

Part of the medical response is the search for a safe and effective vaccine as soon as possible to afford the world’s population some protection. This will undoubtedly involve the use of animals in testing, which is something that we neither support nor think is effective or necessary. In fact, we are not alone in this, as reports from the US suggest that the first trial of a COVID-19 vaccine has begun in human volunteers following extremely minimal animal experiments. The fact that they feel confident enough with minimal animal data to proceed to human trials should be heartening news for those of us opposed to the harmful use of animals. Not only does this show that it is possible, but the reasons why they feel that they have had to take this step should encourage all medical researchers to look at the need for, and effectiveness of, animal testing going forward.