On Monday, 16th of March, The Moderna, a Massachusetts based biotechnology company in collaboration with the U.S National Institutes of Health began testing an experimental vaccine for the highly contagious COVID-19.

The first volunteer happens to be a 43-year-old mother of two teenagers based in Seattle. The lady, Jennifer Haller says that she discussed the issue with her children and they are okay with their mother taking part in the study. She is expected to undergo observation along with other volunteers for the next 12-18 months. This means that the vaccine is not expected to be available for widespread use any time soon. Dr. Anthony Fauci of the U.S National Institute of Health nonetheless says that this might be important if the virus becomes a long-term threat.

The candidate vaccine code named mRNA-1273 has started undergoing trials after only 65 days since the official outbreak of the virus in China. The team, lead by Dr Lisa Jackson plans to administer the vaccine to 45 volunteers largely from the age of 18 to 55. It is not clear on whether the vaccine will be administered to other age brackets but Dr. Lisa said that volunteers from the age of 18 to 55 will get higher doses of the experimental vaccine to test on the level of strength the inoculations and their ramifications.

The inoculations of 100, 50 and 25 milligrams are to be administered within the next one month.

They will then draw blood samples to test if the vaccine is triggering and revving up the immune system and look for encouraging clues that were reported earlier in vaccinated mice.

“We don’t know whether this vaccine will induce an immune response, or whether it will be safe. That’s why we’re doing a trial,” Jackson stressed. “It’s not at the stage where it would be possible or prudent to give it to the general population.”

mRNA-1273 is not a vaccine that is derived from weakened virus. It only contains a genetic code that contains the instructions for cells to create the spike protein. ‘Spike’ protein stick to the surface of the corona virus and lets it invade human cells. When the protein is blocked, humans won’t get infected. Encasing of the messenger RNA into the vaccine was done by Moderna while copying of the genetic code was done by NIH. There volunteers are therefore not expected to get infected with COVID-19 from the vaccine in case it does not work as expected.

Another potential vaccine, made by Inovio Pharmaceuticals, is expected to begin safety tests next month in the U.S., China and South Korea.