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Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says the government is working on several potential vaccines against COVID-19. (May 12)

AP domestic

The positive news is that two COVID-19 vaccine candidates, Moderna in the US and Oxford in the UK, are considered positive. However, experts warned that these vaccines did not clearly prove that they were effective, but that they both represent useful steps early in the journey.

On Monday, Moderna announced that the candidate vaccine appears to be safe when given. Stimulated an immune response with eight humans To SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

“It was a bit of a leap of conviction to imagine protecting 7 billion people from it, since there were only eight, but at least it worked and needs to be encouraged.” Dr. George said. Rutherford is Head of Infectious Diseases and World Epidemiology at the University of California, San Francisco.

Moderna received the first dose of a vaccine candidate called mRNA-1273 on March 16th.

All participants in the Phase 1 clinical trial developed antibodies to the virus. These are known as neutralizing antibodies and when tested in human cells in the laboratory, they stopped the virus from reproducing.

“This is a step in the way. This is a“ so good so far ”point,” said Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine and infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. It was

COVID19 vaccine: Who gets the first thing to get a coronavirus vaccine?

After participants received the candidate vaccine twice, their antibody levels were similar to those who recovered from the COVID-19 infection.

“We often try to match what the vaccine produces with what the natural disease produces. We want the vaccine to meet or exceed these levels of antibodies produced by the disease.” Said Schaffner.

Vaccines made for COVID-19 are estimated to require two doses, one month or two intervals, to be fully protected from the virus.

Moderna said at a news conference on Monday that the second phase of the test would soon begin. The study included 600 healthy adults, 300 aged 18 to 55 and another 300 aged 55 and older.

Moderna has also tested dose levels for vaccines to help determine the required dose.

Oxford’s COVID-19 vaccine

Preliminary positive news came out last week about the Jenner Institute vaccine candidate at Oxford University in the UK. Considered the global front runner, the first test of the vaccine began in humans on April 23.

However Data released last week The Oxford candidate is monkey only and is very preliminary. The candidate vaccine was shown to induce a protective immune response in 6 rhesus monkeys.

The vaccine called ChAdOx1 also appears to have prevented pneumonia and pulmonary inflammatory disease when animals were exposed to SARS-CoV-2.

The monkeys were tested at the Rocky Mountain Institute at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Hamilton, MT.

Infected monkeys were compared to 3 control monkeys that did not receive the vaccine. Two out of three control monkeys developed pneumonia after exposure to the virus.

Pneumonia is the main reason COVID-19 patients arrive at the hospital.. Their lungs become infected with the virus and the body’s immune response can cause a condition known as COVID-19 pneumonia. The result can be acute respiratory distress syndrome, a severe and fatal condition that deprives oxygen of life-threatening organs.

The good news is that the candidate vaccine was protected against pneumonia, Schaffner said.

“We are excited because a vaccine that provides 100% protection against pneumonia can prevent hospitalizations, ICU visits, and deaths,” he said.

An Oxford preprint did not reveal whether the vaccine prevented monkeys from being infected with SARS-CoV-2, but researchers were unable to find the virus in monkey lungs.

The survey results were published in a preprint paper that was posted on the preprint server bioRxiv on Thursday. Preprints are studies that have not undergone the usual peer-review process required for publication in medical or scientific journals. However, in the event of a coronavirus emergency, many researchers will publish the results as they become available.

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