Beijing-based company finds Covid-19 shot protects monkeys

‘For the first time, one of the many COVID-19 vaccines in development has protected an animal, rhesus macaques, from the new coronavirus. The vaccine, an old-fashioned formulation consisting of a chemically inactivated version of the virus, produced no obvious side effects in the monkeys; human trials began on 16 April. And encouraging monkey results for other vaccines are close behind.

‘Researchers from Sinovac Biotech, a privately held Beijing-based company, gave two different doses of their COVID-19 vaccine to a total of eight rhesus macaques. Three weeks later, the group introduced SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, into the monkeys' lungs. None developed a full-blown infection, and the monkeys given the highest dose of vaccine had the best response: Seven days after the animals received the virus, researchers could not detect it in their pharynx or lungs. Some of the lower dosed animals had a “viral blip” but also appeared to have controlled the infection, the Sinovac team reports in a paper published on 19 April on the preprint server bioRxiv.’

Read here (Science, May 1, 2020)