43-year-old mother of two, Jennifer Haller, has become the first person to get injected with experimental coronavirus vaccine as the human trial begins.
The early-stage trial is being led by Dr Lisa Jackson, a senior investigator at Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle, Washington, which has become the epicentre of the US outbreak, with 42 of the country’s 69 deaths.
Jennifer Haller said about taking the bold step; “We all feel so helpless. This is an amazing opportunity for me to do something.”
Study volunteers – healthy people aged between 18 and 55 – have been carefully selected for the trial, which will not only test the safety of the vaccine, but also its ability to induce an immune response in the volunteers.
Some people will be getting higher dosages than others to test how strong the inoculations might need to be.
Over the course of the next six weeks, the team will enrol 45 participants for the trial.
