USAToday reports that the Seattle volunteers who got shots in the first trial of a possible coronavirus vaccine are now getting the second shot — an indicator the early trial is progressing well. While the doctors at Kaiser Permanente's Vaccine Treatment and Evaluation Unit in Seattle don’t know the results of the first round of tests, the fact that it has continued and that the second round of injections are now being given is good news, said Lisa Jackson, who is leading the study.
“The trial hasn’t been stopped. We know from the study protocol that if adverse events had happened, the protocol would have required that,” she said. “Therefore we presume those things haven’t happened.” The volunteers are taking part in the first investigational vaccine study to fight coronavirus. The study launched on March 16.
The vaccine, called mRNA-1273, was developed by scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and at the Cambridge, Mass.-based biotechnology company Moderna, Inc.. It is being given in two doses because the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19, is new and no one had been exposed to it before it appeared in December, said Jackson.
Humans are a "naive" population when it comes to the virus. The first shot “is a primer to set the immune system up, giving it a first look at the virus,” Jackson said. The second shot, administered 28 days later, builds on that protection so the body can more rapidly produce antibodies if it is later exposed to the virus. After the first set of volunteers was enrolled in Seattle, the trial was expanded on March 27 to include volunteers at Emory University’ in Atlanta, Georgia. The initial group included 28 in Seattle and 17 at Emory. The volunteers will be followed for 13 months to ensure they have no side effects or other reactions to the vaccine.
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