The world’s largest COVID-19 vaccine test began on Monday and the first of 30,000 volunteers is expected to review vaccines created through the U.S. government, one of many applicants in the final stretch of the global vaccine race.
There is still no guarantee that the experimental vaccine, developed through the National Institutes of Health and Modern Inc., will protect.
Mandatory testing: Volunteers won’t know if they get the genuine photo or a fake version. After two doses, scientists will largely monitor which organization reports the maximum number of infections in its daily activities, especially in areas where the virus is still spreading unchecked.
“Unfortunately for the United States of America, we have a lot of infections right now” to get this answer, Dr. Anthony Fauci of niH told The Associated Press.
Modern said vaccination took place in Savannah, Georgia, the first site to begin among more than seven dozen checkpoints across the country.
Several other vaccines manufactured through China and the British University of Oxford earlier this month began smaller final phase tests in Brazil and other heavily affected countries.
But the U.S. They are not easy to test their own vaccines that can be used in the country and have set the bar very high: month to autumn, the government-funded COVID-19 prevention network will launch a new study on a leading candidate – one with 30,000 newly recruited volunteers.
The massive studies aren’t just to test if the shots work — they’re needed to check each potential vaccine’s safety. And following the same study rules will let scientists eventually compare all the shots.
Then, in August, the final examination of the shooting begins at Oxford, followed by plans to check a Johnson and Johnson candidate in September and Novavax in October, if everything goes according to plan. Pfizer Inc. is making plans for its own study of 30,000 people this summer.
That’s an impressive number of other people who had to roll up their ass for science. But in recent weeks, more than 150,000 Americans have filed an online record indicating their interest, said Dr. Larry Corey, virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Institute in Seattle, who is helping oversee test sites.
“These trials will have to be multigenerational, they will have to be multiethnic, they will have to reflect the diversity of the American population,” Corey said at a vaccine assembly last week. He stated that it was vital to ensure a sufficient number of black and Hispanic participants, as these populations are greatly affected by COVID-19.
It normally takes years to create a new vaccine from scratch, but scientists are setting speed records this time around, spurred by knowledge that vaccination is the world’s best hope against the pandemic. The coronavirus wasn’t even known to exist before late December, and vaccine makers sprang into action Jan. 10 when China shared the virus’ genetic sequence.
Only 65 days later, in March, the vaccine manufactured by NIH was tested in humans. The first recipient encourages others to volunteer now.
“We all feel so powerless right now. There’s not much we can do to fight this virus. And participating in this rehearsal made me feel like I was doing something,” Jennifer Haller of Seattle told ap. “Get ready for a lot of questions from your friends and the family circle about how it’s going, and thank you very much.”
This first-stage study, which included Haller and 44 others, showed that the injections stimulated the immune formula of the volunteers, so that scientists expect them to be protective, with some minor side effects such as brief fever, chills and pain in injection. Site. The first tests of other leading applicants had equally encouraging results.
If all goes well with the final studies, it will still be months before the first knowledge comes from the Modern test, followed by the Oxford test.
Governments around the world are looking to buy millions of doses of these lead candidates, so if regulators approve one or more vaccines, vaccines can start right away. But the first doses obtained will be rationed, possibly reserved for those most threatened by the virus.
“We are optimistic, cautiously optimistic” that the vaccine will work and that “by the end of the year” there will be knowledge to produce it, Dr. Stephen Hoge, president of Moderna, founded in Massachusetts, told a subcommittee in the House of Representatives. Week.
Until then, Haller, the volunteer vaccinated in March, wears a mask in public and takes the same precautions away with everyone, in the hope that one of the vaccines will be carried out in the pipeline.
“I don’t know what the chances are that this is precisely the right vaccine. But thank God there are so many others fighting this right now,” he said.
AP photographer Ted Warren in Seattle contributed to this report.