[JPost] - The National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, is beginning tests of an antiviral drug on a passenger from the Diamond Princess cruise ship and preparing a new coronavirus vaccine for human testing, according to Time magazine.
The antiviral drug remdesivir, developed for Ebola, is being tested on a patient who was brought to the US from the cruise ship after being infected with the virus. Others diagnosed with COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, will also take part in the study. Remdesivir showed encouraging results among animals infected with two related coronaviruses ‐ those causing severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), according to Time.
...Moderna Therapeutics, a biotech company in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has shipped the first batches of its COVID-19 vaccine to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) at the NIH, which will prepare the vaccine for human testing as early as April, according to Time. |