Moderna ’s COVID-19 Vaccine Enters Final Testing Phase, As Researchers Dose the Study’s First Volunteer

Moderna Therapeutics and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) announced today that researchers had injected the first volunteer in the first U.S. coronavirus vaccine to reach the final, phase 3 stage of testing. That person received the shot at 6:45 am eastern time in Savannah, Geo., Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) told reporters during a briefing. Because the trial will randomly assign participants to receive either the vaccine or a placebo, and neither the researchers nor the volunteers will know which they received, that person won’t know until the data is unblinded whether he or she was vaccinated against COVID-19. Ultimately, 30,000 healthy people will be immunized either with the vaccine or a control to determine how effective the shot is in preventing COVID-19. “The collaboration between the NIH and Moderna, with much support from Operation Warp Speed has now reached a point where we have a chance to find out in the real world…what the status of the vaccine is in its ability to protect against disease and be safe,” said Dr. Francis Collins, director of NIH. Moderna is one of a handful of companies receiving federal funding through the government’s Operation Warp Speed program to facilitate development of a COVID-19 vaccine. Because this final phase of testing will focus on how well the vaccine works, as opposed...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 Source Type: news