An Adelaide-based professor says his team is only six to eight weeks away from being able to test their COVID-19 vaccine on humans.
Professor Nikolai Petrovsky said his team from Flinders University have had somewhat of a head start. In 2007, the same team developed a vaccine for SARS that tested successfully in mice before their funding was cut short.
"All we have done is taken out the gene from COVID-19 and substituted for the gene in SARS and used that to produce an artificial protein," he told SBS News.
Flinders University Professor Nikolai Petrovsky is developing a potential vaccine for COVID-19. Source: AAP
His team is just one of many around the globe scrambling to find a vaccine for the novel coronavirus with technology giants and governments floating seven-figure grants to support their development.
If it is proven to work, Professor Petrovsky is aiming to have his vaccine ready for mass production by the end of the year.
But he said that date could have been a lot earlier if funding for his SARS vaccine had not been cut before they got to test it in humans.
The two illnesses are both coronaviruses passed on to humans from bats, sharing almost 80 per cent of their DNA.
Professor Nikolai Petrovsky is pictured administering a swine flu vaccine in 2009. Source: AAP
"If we had gone ahead and done the ferret - and ultimately done human trial of the SARS vaccine - then we would have already established the safety and effectiveness of that vaccine," he said.
"It would have shaved at least months off our current vaccine development program."
Professor Petrovsky was not the only one to have his vaccine funding cut off; a worldwide lack of funding meant no lab in the world was able to finalise and produce the SARS vaccine.
The vaccine for the coronavirus MERS - or Middle East Respiratory Syndrome - shared a similar fate, with no vaccine ever approved and produced.
Like Professor Petrovsky's approach, a team of researchers at Oxford University in England are adapting a vaccine they started developing for MERS to fight COVID-19.
They say they are only two weeks away from testing it on humans and just five months away from finalising the vaccine, but Australia's Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy is warning the community against hoping for a speedy end to the pandemic.
"We cannot be unrealistic, and none of these announcements that I have heard give me enough confidence to say that those dates will be met," he said.
Chief Medical Officer Professor Brendan Murphy. Source: AAP
"But these are reputable universities and all strengths to their arm," he said.
While laboratories around the world are throwing all of their efforts into developing a vaccine, other researchers are exploring how existing drugs can be used to combat some of COVID-19's fatal symptoms.
Infectious diseases expert Dr Sanjaya Senanayake said the anti-viral drug Remdesivir is already being used in some countries to treat the breathing difficulties that come with the coronavirus. 
The drug was developed for Ebola to supposedly stop the virus from replicating in the body.
Infectious disease expert Dr Sanjaya Senanayake. Source: ANU
Dr Senanayake said an initial and limited study is showing the drug may have promise.
"It found that around two thirds had a clinical improvement," he told SBS News.
"However, the limitations of that study was that it wasn't a randomised control study, so it could have been that other factors contributed to the patients improvement."
People in Australia must stay at least 1.5 metres away from others and gatherings are limited to two people unless you are with your family or household.
If you believe you may have contracted the virus, call your doctor (don’t visit) or contact the national Coronavirus Health Information Hotline on 1800 020 080. If you are struggling to breathe or experiencing a medical emergency, call 000.
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