Coronavirus vaccine testing has begun after first person injected with shot

In some good news among all the doom and gloom of coronavirus, a vaccine trial has begun after the first person was injected last night.

A phase 1 trial is now officially underway in the US, with a woman in Seattle becoming the first human to receive a shot of the potential vaccine.

The trial is happening at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle, with a number of volunteers taking part.

According to Forbes, the vaccine has been developed by biotechnology company Moderna, alongside researchers from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The initial phase of the study aims to see 45 adults receive a shot of the vaccine, known as mRNA-1273, with participants having two shots 28 days apart – they’ll be closely monitored to evaluate the safety and immunogenicity of the vaccine.

43-year old Jennifer Haller from Seattle was the first person to receive the vaccine, she told TIME: “I hope that we get to a working vaccine quickly and that we can save lives and people can go back to life as soon as possible”.

Unlike some other vaccines, this one doesn’t contain the virus and won’t give people COVID-19.

Instead, it uses a small piece of genetic code – called mRNA – which has been extracted from the virus by scientists and then expanded in the lab.

While the vaccine has been developed very fast, it could still take some time for it to be deemed fit for production and distribution – it might not be available for widespread use for 12 to 18 months, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci of the US National Institutes of Health.

It’s not the only vaccine that’s being worked on, with dozens of different research groups across the world all racing to create a coronavirus vaccine.