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A coronavirus vaccine is showing promise in early testing and larger-scale trials are expected to come this month, according to a report from the Associated Press.
Moderna Inc. has partnered with the National Institute of Health that has been given to a group of volunteers. Through two phases of the trials, all 45 volunteers received a dose with an immune response from all of the volunteers.
“This is an essential building block that is needed to move forward with the trials that could actually determine whether the vaccine does protect against infection,” Dr. Lisa Jackson, of the Kaiser Permanente Washington Research Institute in Seattle, said.
The larger-scale trials will include 30,000 participants across more than 80 locations as the company hopes to produce more than 500 million doses by 2021.
“With the Phase 3 dose being finalized … the Company remains on track to be able to deliver approximately 500 million doses per year, and possibly up to 1 billion doses per year, beginning in 2021,” Moderna said in a statement.
Finding a vaccine for the novel coronavirus is a necessary discovery if we ever want to return to normal life after the coronavirus pandemic, so this is positive news all around.
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The coronavirus mainly comes from animals and a majority of those who were infected early either worked at or frequently visited the Huanan seafood wholesale market in Wuhan, according to The Guardian. The virus is similar to Severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) and Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome (Mers).
The Wuhan coronavirus is transmitted from person to person through “droplet transmission.” That means an infected person can pass the virus by sneezing or coughing on another person as well as by direct contact.
While a majority of the cases have been detected in the United States and China — with more than 138,000 deaths in the United States — it has now reached many countries around the world. It has also been confirmed in Italy, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and many other eastern countries.
