On May 21, Dr. Anthony Fudge, an infectious disease expert in the United States, said he maintained a “cautious and optimistic” attitude towards Moderna’s development of a new crown vaccine.
Previous May 18, the biological company Moderna, which collaborated with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), announced the results of the first phase of the company ’s new coronavirus vaccine positive. Among them, among the 45 human subjects in the first phase of clinical trials, 8 subjects produced a neutralizing antibody related to preventing the virus from infecting humans. In these subjects, two weeks after receiving the second dose of vaccine, the level of neutralizing antibodies against the new coronavirus reached or exceeded the levels seen in recovered patients.
But then, some vaccine experts raised doubts about Moderna ’s vaccine. On the one hand, the company did not publish the test results in a medical professional journal, but only issued a press release; The second is that for the 8 subjects who produced neutralizing antibodies, they did not disclose further key information such as their age range, nor did they disclose the results of the remaining 37 subjects.
In this regard, Anthony Fudge, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in an interview with CNN that the vaccine is still in the early stages of research and the results are still Inconclusive, and said: “Cautiously optimistic about this.”
Fuch said: “Although the number is limited, this is still good news, because it has reached and overcome an important obstacle to vaccine research and development. The reason for being cautiously optimistic. “
” The question is, is it safe? Obviously yes. “Fuch said,” But the important thing is that it appears In addition to what you expect to be able to protect the virus. “
” This is indeed good news. “Fuch said.
At present, many pharmaceutical companies are working hard to develop solutions against the new coronavirus. On May 21, the US government agreed to pay up to US $ 1.2 billion to British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca to ensure access to 300 million doses of experimental vaccines. According to Reuters, AstraZeneca conducted a clinical trial of the drug in April 2020, including 1,000 healthy volunteers. The results of the trial are yet to be announced.
As of May 11, the official website of the World Health Organization has registered 110 new coronary pneumonia vaccines under development, of which 8 have entered clinical trials.
Among them, the adenoviral vector vaccine of China ’s Kangxin Bio and the mRNA vaccine of Moderna of the United States are currently the fastest-developed vaccines in the world. .