Vaccine Candidates Begin All-Important Trials

According to Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health,  Moderna’s vaccine candidate began its final phase 3 clinical trial yesterday—the first US vaccine to reach that milestone, MSNBC reports. The vaccine, developed in partnership with the NIH, uses messenger RNA to train the immune system to target the spike protein on the coronavirus’s surface that helps it invade cells.

Pfizer also began Phase 3 testing of its vaccine candidate on human volunteers yesterday, working with a German company, BioNTech, The New York Times reports. An Oxford viral vector vaccine has also entered the pivotal Phase 3; Nat Geo has that story.

Landing 150,000+ volunteers who are sufficiently diverse in age, ethnicity, sex, health conditions, and other characteristics for at least 5 Operation Warp Speed vaccine trials in the next 6 months, Chris Beyrer, COVID-19 Vaccine Prevention Network co-lead for Community Engagement, told Global Health NOW.  195,000+ Americans have already volunteered online to participate in the trials, but “most of the people who signed up are in their 20s and 30s. The median age is 30. So, they’re kind of too young and too healthy,” says Beyrer, a Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health professor.

The initial vaccines are being evaluated for their ability to minimize COVID-19’s most severe effects.

Therefore, trial researchers don’t want just young, healthy volunteers. People with underlying conditions (like hypertension, obesity, and diabetes) that would predispose them to more severe disease are needed.

Courtesy:  Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health