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An experimental vaccine “broadly protected” a group of monkeys for the first time against the new coronavirus, a Chinese laboratory carrying out the experiment announced Friday.
The vaccine, which uses inert pathogens from the virus that causes COVID-19, was administered to eight Rhesus macaques, which were subsequently artificially contaminated, according to the results of the trial, published by the pharmaceutical giant Sinovac Biotech.
“The four monkeys that received the vaccine in a high dose had no trace of the virus in their lungs seven days after it was contaminated,” says the laboratory.
Four other monkeys, administered the same vaccine but in lower doses, had a higher viral load in the body, but also managed to resist the disease.
These results must still be validated by the scientific community.
Sinovac, a Nasdaq-listed company, began clinical trials of the same vaccine in humans on April 16.
“This is the first serious data I see about an experimental vaccine,” Florian Krammer, a virologist at the Icahn School of Medicine in New York, said on Twitter.
“The question is whether this protection lasts long,” wondered immunologist Lucy Walker of University College London.
In addition to the Sinovac experiment, Beijing approved two other vaccine trials, one in Hong Kong and one in Wuhan, where the pathogen emerged at the end of last year.
The American modern laboratory also announced that it had been conducting a test since mid-May.
Pharmaceutical groups and laboratories around the world are waging a race against time to develop effective treatment and a vaccine against COVID-19, which has killed more than 190,000 people worldwide. It is estimated that an effective vaccine will take between 12 and 18 months to produce.
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