A clinical trial evaluating a vaccine designed to protect against the new coronavirus will begin in the US on Monday.
The first participant in the trial will receive the experimental vaccine on Monday.
The National Institutes of Health is funding the trial, which is taking place at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle.
- It will take a year to 18 months to fully validate any potential vaccine.
- Participants are unlikely to get infected from the shots, because they don’t contain the virus itself.
- The goal is purely to check that the vaccines show no worrisome side effects.
Race to Create a Vaccine
Dozens of research groups around the world are racing to create a vaccine as COVID-19 cases continue to grow.
Importantly, they’re pursuing different types of vaccines.
Some researchers even aim for temporary vaccines, such as shots that might guard people’s health a month or two at a time while longer-lasting protection is developed.
Symptoms
For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia.
The vast majority of people recover. According to the World Health Organization, people with mild illness recover in about two weeks, while those with more severe illness may take three weeks to six weeks to recover.
The worldwide outbreak has sickened more than 156,000 people and left more than 5,800 dead. The death toll in the United States is more than 50, while infections neared 3,000 across 49 states and the District of Columbia.