Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine Begins Final Human Trial Phase In July

With more and more cases of COVID-19, it is an urgent need for a vaccine to tackle the novel coronavirus.

Pharma companies are racing to try to develop a successful vaccine as soon as possible. And Moderna Inc from the US is ahead in this race.

On May 11, the company, in an official update, confirmed that it would finally enter the Phase III trials this July, the final stage of vaccine testing.

Reuters reported that 30,000 participants would join in the test. According to the company, the study’s primary goal to prevent the novel coronavirus’ symptomatic cases. Meanwhile, the second goal is to understand the vaccine’s preventiveness to lower the number of COVID-19 infections.

For the final stage, Moderna Inc. has revealed that a 100-microgram vaccine dose will be used. They explained that this dosage is to boost the body’s immune response while limiting the adverse reactions and effects.

The company also claims that it can deliver about 500 million 100-microgram doses a year. And by 2021, with its own facility set up in the US and its collaboration with drugmaker Lonza from Switzerland, it can boost this number to 1 billion doses a year. Moderna has already completed making enough doses for the final trials.

For its mid-stage study, the company had 3,000 healthy participants. Each received at least one shot of vaccine. Among them, there were 50 older adults from the 18-54 age group.

It is crucial to test the efficacy of the vaccine in older adults as this is the group that is at a higher risk of getting the virus and suffer from more severe effects. The mid-stage study’s goal is to look at the initial effectiveness and safety of two vaccine doses that are injected 28 days apart.

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