Coronavirus Update: First Person Given Experimental Vaccine In Seattle

The Kaiser Permanente Washington Research Institute in Seattle on Monday gave a volunteer the first dose of an experimental coronavirus vaccine, according to the Associated Press.

“We’re team coronavirus now,” said Dr. Lisa Jackson, a senior investigator working on the study. “Everybody wants to do what they can in this emergency.”

More than 45 volunteers will be given two doses of the vaccine, which will be spread two months apart. The vaccine candidate, code-named mRNA-1273, has no risk of infecting the volunteers.

Jennifer Haller, 43, was one of the first volunteers to receive the shot. She said "this is an amazing opportunity for me to do something."

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, has previously said that it would take 12 to 18 months to deploy a vaccine. Researchers and physicians are currently racing for an effective vaccine for the virus.

Canadian scientists from Sunnybook Research Institute, the University of Toronto, and McMaster University have successfully isolated and grown copies of the virus, a major step towards developing a vaccine.

Eight institutes in China are also working on various approaches to a vaccine. Chinese officials have claimed a vaccine could be ready by next month for clinical trials and emergency situations.

President Trump has offered “large sums of money” to a German biopharmaceutical firm which is developing a vaccine. Trump wanted to secure the vaccine solely for the U.S., angering German lawmakers.

According to Johns Hopkins University, there have been over 179,000 cases of coronavirus worldwide. The global death toll has exceeded 6,500 people.