Dr. Fauci says he's 'cautiously optimistic' about COVID-19 vaccine trials
Researchers developing a vaccine for the novel coronavirus have already achieved a milestone that has eluded colleagues working for decades on a vaccine for HIV, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Thursday. Earlier this week, the biotech company Moderna, which has partnered with the US National Institutes of Health, announced early findings from the first phase of human trials for a COVID-19 vaccine, which was tested on 45 human volunteers.
The early results were encouraging: Eight of those in the trial developed a specific type of antibody that is associated with stopping the virus from infecting people. While acknowledging that vaccine development was still in early stages, Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN that this result was not a given — and"that's why I'm cautiously optimistic about it." "The question is: Was it immediately safe? Clearly, it was," Fauci said of the prospective vaccine."But, importantly, it induced the kind of response that you would predict would be protective against the virus."Several companies are working to develop a vaccine for the novel coronavirus. On Thursday, the US government agreed to pay the British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca up to $1.2 billion to secure 300 million doses of its experimental vaccine. Story continuesThe company began a trial of the drug in April involving 1,000 healthy volunteers, according to Reuters. Results are expected soon. The US has struck a similar deal with Moderna, as well as Johnson & Johnson and the French pharmaceutical company Sanofi.
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