Moderna's vaccine candidate triggers Covid-19 immunity response in monkeys

The candidate vaccine, mRNA-1273, has been co-developed by scientists at Moderna and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in the US

US biotechnology company Moderna's experimental vaccine to prevent Covid-19 induced robust immune responses and rapidly controlled the novel coronavirus in the upper and lower airways of monkeys exposed to SARS-CoV-2, according to a study.

The candidate vaccine, mRNA-1273, has been co-developed by scientists at Moderna and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in the US.

The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, complements recently reported interim results from an NIAID-sponsored Phase 1 clinical trial of mRNA-1273.

In the study, three groups of eight rhesus macaques received two injections of 10 or 100 microgrammes (g) of mRNA-1273 or