[ti:Moderna Says Early Coronavirus Vaccine Shows Promise]
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[00:00.04]American drug maker Moderna said Monday that its experimental COVID-19 vaccine
[00:07.96]produced antibodies in a small group of healthy people in an early trial.
[00:15.20]The company said eight people who received two small amounts of its vaccine
[00:22.08]developed antibodies similar to those developed by people who have recovered from the disease.
[00:31.48]The U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases led the experiment, also called a trial.
[00:42.76]It involved 45 volunteers who received one or two shots of differing amounts of the vaccine.
[00:53.20]Tal Zaks is the chief medical officer at Moderna.
[00:59.04]Based on early results of the trial, he said the vaccine "has the potential to prevent COVID-19 disease...."
[01:09.72]He also said the company now can better choose the vaccine amount needed for further experiments.
[01:18.68]The testing involved three different amounts.
[01:22.88]Zaks said the two smaller amounts of vaccine seem safe
[01:28.12]and the larger amount caused some short-term side effects.
[01:34.48]Three study subjects developed "flu-like" conditions following a second shot of the large dose.
[01:43.88]Moderna said it plans to drop that amount for the next part of the trial.
[01:51.68]Amesh Adalja is an infectious disease expert
[01:55.48]at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security who was not involved in the study.
[02:03.64]He told Reuters that the findings are meaningful, but noted that they come from only eight people.
[02:13.20]"It was designed for safety. Not for efficacy," he said.
[02:19.88]Moderna has been permitted to start a second part of human testing
[02:25.08]that will involve several hundreds of people.
[02:30.20]In April, the U.S. government gave the company $483 million for vaccine development.
[02:39.84]Last week, U.S. officials gave the vaccine special recognition to help speed the process for approval.
[02:49.88]Stéphane Bancel, Chief Executive Officer of Moderna,
[02:54.12]said the company is hoping to start part three of the study in July.
[03:00.80]The company will try to find the lowest amount of vaccine necessary to protect people.
[03:09.16]In May, Moderna and the biotechnology company Lonza
[03:14.08]agreed to work together over the next ten years to make a vaccine.
[03:21.00]The partnership could lead to the manufacture of 1 billion COVID-19 vaccine treatments a year.
[03:30.60]There are currently no approved treatments or vaccines for COVID-19.
[03:38.60]Almost 4.8 million people are confirmed to have had the virus.
[03:45.84]It is known to have killed about 320,000.
[03:51.64]However, experts think the numbers may be underreported.
[03:58.36]The World Health Organization has listed more than 100 efforts
[04:03.04]to develop effective treatments and vaccines for the coronavirus.
[04:09.48]The list includes clinical trials in China, at the University of Oxford,
[04:16.28]and with American drug makers Pfizer, Inovio and Moderna.
[04:23.88]Experts predict a safe and effective vaccine could take 12 to 18 months to develop.
[04:33.20]The results of Moderna's early trial have not been published.
[04:38.72]But the news lifted the company's stock prices and spread hope
[04:44.24]that a solution against the infectious disease might be close.
[04:50.80]I'm Jonathan Evans. 更多听力请访问21VOA.COM