This archive report was first published on 20 May 2020.
Published on May 20, 2020, a Covid-19 vaccine developed by Moderna, an American biotechnology company, has shown promise in its first phase of human trials.
The vaccine, which has been tested in eight healthy volunteers aged 18 to 55, has been found to stimulate an immune response against the virus, with the levels of antibodies produced similar to those of people who have recovered from the disease.
According to the results, the vaccine was able to stop the virus from replicating in infected cells in the laboratory, indicating its potential effectiveness.
Moderna's technology, which involves genetic material from the virus called mRNA, is relatively new and has yet to produce any approved vaccine.
Meanwhile, Kenyan researcher Dr F. George Njoroge and his team of scientists at Merck Pharmaceutical Company have found that a drug approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of hepatitis C has demonstrated good potency in inhibiting Covid-19 proliferation in cells.
Dr Njoroge is now calling for further studies on the drug, which he believes could be added to the list of others undergoing clinical trials as a single agent or in combination with other antiviral inhibitors.
