Clinical trials to test for a potential COVID-19 vaccine have kickstarted in the US and the first person who volunteered was 43-year old mum of two Jennifer Haller?from Seattle.?
Reports state that Haller received the first of two injections on March 16. The medical trial is taking place at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle.
Apart from Haller, there are 45 healthy individuals to participate in phase one of the trial, which has been funded by the National Institutes of Health.?The National Institutes of Health, an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services, has been working with Moderna, which is a biotech company.?
Together, they used the genetic sequence of the new coronavirus and engineered a vaccine called mRNA-1273.?
¡°We all feel so helpless. This is an amazing opportunity for me to do something,¡± Jennifer Haller told AP before getting vaccinated. Her two children ¡°think it¡¯s cool¡± that she¡¯s taking part in the study.
In an interview with the Refinery Jennifer Haller said, "It was about two weeks ago that they put out a call for volunteers. A friend of mine posted it on Facebook, so I immediately filled out the survey. The next day I got a phone call to review my health history."
The vaccine candidate, code-named mRNA-1273, is not the only potential vaccine in the pipeline. Dozens of research groups around the world are racing to create a vaccine against COVID-19. Another candidate, made by Inovio Pharmaceuticals, is expected to begin its own safety study next month in the U.S., China and South Korea.?
The Seattle experiment got underway days after the World Health Organization declared the new virus outbreak a pandemic because of its rapid global spread, which has infected more than 169,000 people and killed more than 6,500.??