Third COVID Vaccine Candidate Starts Phase 3 Trial in US
[Photo: Pornpak Khunatorn / iStock]
Today the United States has three COVID-19 vaccine candidates in phase 3 trials, as AstraZeneca launched the final stage of a trial of its vaccine candidate, which it plans to test in 30,000 healthy adults.
The AstraZeneca vaccine, developed at Oxford University, is already in phase 3 trial in the United Kingdom. The first US volunteers were inoculated today at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in Madison, and AstraZeneca plans to add 50 participants each day after Sep 7.
In addition to the AstraZeneca vaccine, Moderna’s vaccine candidate is already in phase 3 trials in the United States, as is Pfizer and BioNTech’s. If any of the vaccines succeed, they will mark the fastest development timeline in history.
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The phase 3 trials occur as the United States reported 33,888 new COVID-19 cases on Monday and 594 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 tracker. According to the Wall Street Journal, this is the lowest national daily high since Jun 22. In total, the United States has 6,055,569 COVID-19 cases and 184,114 fatalities.
Though cases are trending downward, the last day of August brought 6,500 new cases to California and 3,000 to Texas. Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina, and Tennessee each reported more than 1,000 new cases.
August was also the deadliest month for California thus far in the pandemic, with 3,745 deaths connected to COVID-19, according to the Los Angeles Times. California now has more than 700,000 coronavirus cases – the most in the United States.
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SOURCE
Author: Stephanie Soucheray
Publication: CIDRAP
Title: Third COVID vaccine candidate starts phase 3 trial in US
