Results for first human trial of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine are in - Body and Soul

Researchers from China published their findings on the world's first initial human trial for a potential vaccine against COVID-19 - and the results appear encouraging.

Now, researchers from China announced the initial results for the first human trial of SARS-CoV-2 (AKA COVID-19) vaccine.

The results suggest that the vaccine appears to be safe and may be potentially effective against the viral infection.

The results for Phase 1 are promising, but there is still other rounds of trial yet to come.

Researchers from various Chinese institutions - China National Institute for Food and Drug Control in Beijing, the Beijing Institute of Biotechnology, and the Chinese vaccine organisation CanSino Biologics - began the first round of human trials in early March.

The trialled vaccine is termed "adenovirus type 5 vectored COVID-19 (Ad5-nCoV) vaccine".

During the 28-day period, the results showed that the patients endured the vaccine safely, and the adverse reactions many participants experienced were not serious or long-lasting.

There was only one patient on the “high dose” who experienced various severe reactions including severe fatigue, shortness of breath, muscle pain and “severe fever […] with axillary temperature greater than 38.5 [degrees Celsius]”.

“The trial demonstrates that a single dose of the new [Ad5-nCoV] vaccine produces virus-specific antibodies and T cells in 14 days, making it a potential candidate for further investigation,” explained Professor Chen.