The National Institutes of Health (NIH) will begin a clinical trial of a coronavirus vaccine today in Seattle.
According to one government official, the first participant will receive a dose to test if there are any potential side effects.
Per the Associated Press:
Testing will begin with 45 young, healthy volunteers with different doses of shots co-developed by NIH and Moderna Inc. There’s no chance participants could 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, setting the stage for larger tests.
Currently there are no proven treatments for COVID-19, though several countries are busy with researching.
In China, scientists are looking into a combination of HIV drugs to fight coronavirus and both there and in the US remdesivir, an experimental drug to fight ebola, is being tested on some infected people.