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Promising vaccines |
| During the trial of a vaccine, the final test is also its biggest: Phase 3. That’s when the vaccine is given to tens of thousands of people, along with a placebo group, to determine its safety and effectiveness. It’s the final step before a vaccine is approved and distributed to the public. |
| Of the more than 155 vaccines in development around the world, only four have reached Phase 3, according to The Times’s vaccine tracker. (The Chinese military issued the first approval for a vaccine last month, but only for limited use.) |
| But at least three more potential vaccines appear ready to enter Phase 3. |
| One, made by the biotech company Moderna, provoked an immune response in 45 people in a study published this week — and it did so safely and without serious side effects. The company announced yesterday that it would begin Phase 3 testing in 30,000 people later this month, to be completed by late October. |
| Russian scientists hailed another potential vaccine as safe and effective this week, and said it would enter Phase 3 in mid-August. And in an interview with Meridian Magazine, an executive director for pharmaceutical sciences at Pfizer said the company would begin a Phase 3 trial with one of its vaccine candidates later this month and, assuming it is positive, have 200 million doses ready by November. |
| Experts agree that we’ll need multiple vaccines because no single company can quickly produce the billions of doses the world needs. |
| One big outstanding question: It’s unknown how effective any of these vaccines may be, even those that get F.D.A. approval. They’re created to provoke an immune response, often nudging our bodies to create antibodies. But experts say that antibodies don’t necessarily confer immunity. And a recent study suggests that antibodies may last only two to three months after infection, especially in patients who were asymptomatic. |
| New thinking on blood type. Early studies suggested that people with Type A blood were at greater risk of getting sick and falling dangerously ill. But two studies that examined thousands of patients, suggest a much weaker link to blood type.
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