Jennifer Haller is the first of 45 human participants to test a potential vaccine for the novel coronavirus.
Rabat – Phase I of the clinical trial to test potential COVID-19 vaccine mRNA-1273 began yesterday in Seattle, Washington. Jennifer Haller will be the first volunteer injected with mRNA-1273 as part of the study, which began March 3.
Researchers will inject healthy adults of both genders with three separate dosages of the vaccine candidate. They will monitor the progress of study volunteers for 12 months following the second injection.
“They think it’s cool,” says Jennifer Haller in an interview in the Times, referring to her children’s reaction to their mother participating in the trial. All volunteers are healthy adults between the ages of 18 and 55.
The study aims to find a safe remedy to COVID-19, which the World Health Organization (WHO) declared has reached a state of a pandemic. The WHO reports that the novel coronavirus has resulted in over 6,606 fatalities globally as of March 16. Morocco recorded its second COVID-19 related death this morning, March 17.
Biotech company ModernaTX, Inc. developed m-RNA-1273. The United States National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a branch of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is sponsoring the trial, and the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle is overseeing its safe operations.
Our (co-inventors @McLellan_Lab) COVID-19 vaccine (spike delivered by @moderna_tx‘s mRNA) was just injected into the 1st human in phase 1 trial, only 66 days after viral sequence release… a testament to rapid vaccine development for emerging diseases??https://t.co/2DLZsdirAD
— KizzyPhD (@KizzyPhD) March 16, 2020
Researchers estimate June 1, 2021 as the study’s completion date.
