When Will We Have a Coronavirus Vaccine? | U.S. News - 0 views
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That investigational vaccine, called mRNA-1273, has been developed by Moderna Therapeutics, and the clinical trial is being conducted at Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute Vaccine and Treatment Evaluation Unit.
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"there is still much we don't know about the source of this pandemic and the complexity of this novel virus. So, we understand that one company, one vaccine, one test or one medicine will not be an effective solution to overcoming the tremendous task at hand."
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Regulatory review and approval. If a medication or drug is proven safe and effective in clinical trials, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gets involved to evaluate the vaccine and administer an approval. The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations reports that, typically, 1 in 10 experimental vaccines make it all the way through regulatory approval.
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Each one of those steps can take years, and a potential vaccine can get stalled indefinitely at any one of them.
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There's not a whole lot that can be done to speed up the process and still arrive at a safe and effective vaccine. Currently, most medical and public health experts say we're at least 12 to 18 months away from having a usable vaccine against COVID-19.
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Because of the lengthy timeline associated with vaccine development, nearly three dozen companies and academic institutions around the world are now directing resources towards the search
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While these new approaches could speed a vaccine to market, it does raise some ethical questions about safety. It's also unclear just yet whether the rush will result in an effective vaccine faster
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"In the beginning of the process, the research usually involves searching through tons of sources of data to uncover opportunities that may not be so obvious.
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The trial will assess "safety and antibody production, meaning that testing various doses' safety and whether these doses are producing an immune response. This phase 1 trial is not studying the effectiveness of the vaccine in preventing coronavirus infection. That will come at a later phase of the research,
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But the sense of urgency surrounding the need for a safe, effective vaccine to prevent COVID-19 is driving public health officials, private pharmaceutical companies and others to work as quickly as they can to find a solution. The sooner these vaccines and other medications can be tested, the sooner we might have a viable vaccine that can halt a global pandemic that shows few signs of slowing on its own. But right now, experts say that it will take at least a year and likely longer before such a vaccine is available