WASHINGTON — U.S. researchers have opened another safety test of an experimental COVID-19 vaccine, this one using a skin-deep shot instead of the usual deeper jab.
The pinch should feel like a simple skin test, a researcher told the volunteer lying on an exam table in Kansas City, Missouri, on Wednesday.
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“It’s the most important trial that we’ve ever done,” Dr. John Ervin of the Center for Pharmaceutical Research told The Associated Press afterward. “People are beating down the door to get into this trial.”
The experiment, using a vaccine candidate developed by Inovio Pharmaceuticals, is part of a global hunt for much-needed protection against a virus that has triggered an economic shutdown and forced people indoors as countries try to stem the spread.
A different vaccine candidate began safety testing in people last month in Seattle, one developed by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. About two-thirds of that study’s participants have gotten the first of two needed doses.
Inovio’s study is set to test two doses of its vaccine, code-named INO-4800, in 40 healthy volunteers at the Kansas City research lab and the University of Pennsylvania. Inovio is working with Chinese researchers to also begin a similar study in that country soon.
These early-stage studies are a first step to see if a vaccine appears safe enough for larger tests needed to prove whether it will protect. Even if the research goes well, it is expected to take more than a year before any vaccine could be widely available.
Dozens of potential vaccines are being designed in labs around the world, expected to begin this testing process over the next several months.
“The good thing is we’ve got a bunch of candidates,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the NIH’s infectious diseases chief, said during a podcast for the Journal of the American Medical Association Wednesday.
