Public health officials said a new coronavirus vaccine will undergo its first human trial today.
The first participant will receive an experimental dose today to determine whether the vaccine can offer protection against the new coronavirus, a.k.a. COVID-19.
The clinical trial, which is going to take place at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle, is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The officials said it might take up to 18 months to fully validate any potential vaccine.
The human trials will begin with 45 young, healthy volunteers who will receive different doses of the vaccine that is co-developed by NIH and Moderna, a Massachusetts-based biotechnology company.
The vaccine does not contain the virus itself so there is no chance participants could get infected from the shots. The officials explained that the aim to check that the vaccines show no troublesome side effects.
Many researchers across the world are in a race to develop a coronavirus vaccine as the cases continue to rise. They are even using new technologies to create a potent vaccine. In fact, some researchers aim to develop temporary vaccines to offer protection for a month or two and then work on developing vaccines offering longer-lasting protection.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said even if initial safety tests go well, “you’re talking about a year to a year and a half” before any vaccine could be ready for widespread use.
It would take additional human studies to determine whether a vaccine indeed protects and does no harm to people, meaning the long wait is quite hard for an already frightened public.
Recently, President Donald Trump said the work on developing the coronavirus vaccine is “moving along very quickly.” He hopes to see a vaccine “relatively soon.”
Currently, there is no clinically proven treatment for COVID-19. Researchers are testing an experimental drug called remdesivir (which was developed to treat Ebola) and other drugs to treat the new coronavirus.
Globally, COVID-19 has affected more than 169,000 and killed over 6,500 people so far. In the United States, the virus has sickened 3,782 and killed 69.
The virus causes mild to moderate flu-like symptoms, such as fever and cough, for most people. However, for older adults and people with underlying health issues, the virus can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says people with mild illness recover in a couple of weeks, while those who have severe illness may take up to six weeks to recover. The article was originally published in ABC News.
