(27 Jul 2020) LEAD IN:
The world’s biggest COVID-19 vaccine is underway with the first of 30,000 volunteers helping to test shots created by the U.S. government and the pharma company Moderna Inc.
It’s the second stage of the study, and doctors are proceeding with it because doctors say it boosted the immune system of 45 people who received the vaccine in March.
STORY-LINE:
It’s four months since Jennifer Haller became one of the first people to be given the vaccine developed by the National Institutes for Health and Moderna Inc.
The vaccine, which reached stage two trials today (Monday 27 July 2020), is one of several candidates in the final stretch of the global vaccine race.
Thirty thousand people will join Haller and the first cohort to test the shot.
The virus wasn’t even known to exist before late December, and vaccine makers sprang into action on the tenth of January when China shared the genetic sequence of the virus.
Just 65 days later in March, the NIH-made vaccine was tested in people, among them Haller, continues to be monitored.
“I didn’t experience any major side effects. The only one that I had was a slight soreness in my arm for the next day. But, but that’s that was very similar to what I experienced with the flu shot,” says Haller.
Despite being on the earlier trial Haller isn’t taking chances. There’s still no guarantee it will protect people against COVID-19 and Haller is still taking every precaution, just as though she hadn’t been given the shot.
She says: “I have conducted my life for the past four months as if I didn’t have the vaccine. So I’ve been taking the same precautions as everyone else. Wearing a mask when I’m in public, indoors and you know, social distancing.”
The first-stage of the study shows the vaccine revved up the volunteers’ immune systems in ways scientists expect will be protective.
There were some minor side effects such as a brief fever, chills and pain at the injection site. Early testing of other leading candidates have had similarly encouraging results.
The study’s second participant, Neal Browning, also received his first shot in March, followed by a second dose about a month later.
“And once we got both doses they basically let us go and put us on a one year cycle from the second dose where every three months we would need to return for a blood draw,” says Browning.
Doctors are closely monitoring every stage.
Volunteers won’t know if they’re getting the real shot or a dummy version.
After two doses, scientists will closely track which group experiences more infections as they go about their daily routines, especially in areas where the virus still is spreading unchecked.
“There are two major things that we have to consider. The first is does the vaccine work? We call that effectiveness. And then how well does it work and how well does it work in different populations,” says Dr. William Schaffner, Professor of Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University.
He says: “The other side of it that coin is, is the vaccine safe? And we need to know that with every vaccine because we’re giving it to people who are not sick.”
There are other experimental vaccine trials underway.
Next up in August, the final study of the Oxford vaccine begins in the UK. Imperial College London is also expanding test centres.
Volunteer Browning says he is just happy to contribute in anyway he can.
He and Haller will discover the results like everyone else after phase three.
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