Tests reveal Moderna's vaccine candidate protects mice from coronavirus

Mice showed no evidence of enhanced lung pathology or excessive mucus production, indicating the vaccine did not cause enhanced disease, researchers find

US biotechnology company's vaccine candidate protected mice from infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, according to a study published in the journal Nature on Wednesday.

The findings by scientists, including those from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in the US, show that the vaccine, known as mRNA-1273, induced neutralising antibodies in mice when given as two intramuscular injections of a 1-microgramme (mcg) dose three weeks apart.

Additional experiments found that mice given two injections of the 1-mcg dose and later challenged with SARS-CoV-2 virus either five or 13 weeks after the second injection were