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Development of vaccine against new coronavirus progressing well: U.S. health official

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services , U.S. health official , vaccine against new coronavirus , coronavirus battle

Photo: Health workers (L-R) Bai Hui, Li Chunfang, Zhao Zhigang and Guo Qin, who have recovered from recent novel coronavirus infections, pose for a group photo at the emergency medical center of Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University in Wuhan, central China’s Hubei Province.
A U.S. health official said Friday that the development of vaccine against the coronavirus is going well, with “no glitches.”

Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said at a news briefing at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that work is underway with biotech company Moderna to develop the vaccine.

Fauci said one of the first steps that the vaccine development had to go through proved successful after the researchers successfully inserted the virus gene, published by their Chinese counterparts in a database, into the Moderna’s messenger RNA platform, allowing it to express proteins.

The next step is to put those proteins into a mouse model to induce immunogenicity, according to Fauci. If successful, initial clinical trials will start within 2.5 months to test the vaccine’s safety in a small group of humans.