MERS Not Given Same Vaccine Attention as Ebola, Other Viruses A MERS outbreak has infected about 150 people in South Korea, after a businessman apparently brought the virus back from the Middle East.Authorities are scrambling to control the spread of the illness, known fully as the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome. But a vaccine is not among their tools � since it doesn�t yet exist, and is probably not close to being developed.The coronavirus, similar to the SARS virus which killed hundreds in Asia a decade ago, has no vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.MERS was only discovered in 2012 in Saudi Arabia. The country has been battling an ongoing outbreak in the years since, with more than 1,000 infected, and nearly half of them resulting in deaths.MERS is considered more deadly than SARS, according to a Reuters report.However, fewer companies have worked on vaccines and drugs for the MERS virus, according to Reuters. Small biotech companies such as Greffex, Inovio and Novavax have all done some investigation on vaccines for the sickness � but the research is still all pre-clinical, the news service reported.Other diseases have appeared to take precedence in the research pipeline in recent years.Ebola research, including vaccines and treatments, dominated headlines worldwide in the wake of the outbreak of the virus in multiple West African nations last year. Johnson and Johnson announced in January it was administering 400,000 doses of its Phase I trial vaccine in Africa. However, other viruses were also �racing� for deployment amid the panicked fears as that outbreak spread. One has made it beyond the Phase I trials � and is being readied for the next potential outbreak, according to a study published in April.The SARS vaccine work proceeded for years � but since the virus mostly disappeared, there are not enough live examples of disease to effectively test it, according to multiple reports.Such investment of resources was never made for MERS, according to Reuters. Saudi Arabia secretive response to the outbreak is partly to blame, since details of the virus are only beginning to be known as it spreads beyond the Middle East. So far MERS cases have been diagnosed in 25 countries, including the U.S. and China, according to the news service.Medical experts have said the virus may have originated in bats, that cases have been linked to camels, and that it is communicable between people.Severe fever, coughing and shortness of breath are among the symptoms of MERS, which can ultimately result in pneumonia and kidney failure, according to the CDC.So far, 16 have died in the South Korea outbreak.