Washington (AFP)

The first clinical trial to test a vaccine against the new coronavirus began Monday in Seattle, US health officials said, bringing a ray of hope in the global fight against the epidemic.

"The open clinical trial will include the participation of 45 healthy adult volunteers between the ages of 18 and 55 for approximately six weeks," the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) said in a statement.

"The first participant received the experimental vaccine today," they added.

But participants will still have to go through different phases to determine if the vaccine is effective and safe.

US officials have estimated that it will take another year to a year and a half before the vaccine is available, if all goes to plan.

The vaccine is called mRNA-1273 and was developed by scientists from NIH and the biotechnology company Moderna, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

There is currently no approved vaccine or treatment for the Covid-19 virus, which has infected more than 179,000 people and killed more than 7,000 people worldwide since the epidemic began in December in China.

"Finding a safe and effective vaccine to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection is a public health priority," said Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Infectious Diseases.

"This phase 1 of the study, launched in record time, is an important step to approach this goal," he added.

The Seattle trial will study the impact of injecting different doses into the intramuscular tissue of the upper arm and will monitor side effects - pain or fever - in participants.

Coronaviruses are spherical and have peaks on their surface, which gives them the appearance of a crown. The peak attaches to human cells, allowing the virus to enter it.

Moderna's vaccine candidate contains the genetic information for this peak in a substance called "RNA messenger".

Injecting an RNA messenger into the human body causes it to develop inside the body, triggering an immune response without needing to infect the person with the whole virus.

CEPI, the Coalition for innovations in preparation for epidemics also provided funding for the implementation of the trial.

- World race -

Pharmaceutical groups and research laboratories around the world have embarked on a race to develop treatments and vaccines against the new coronavirus, using a variety of new technologies.

The antiviral treatment called remdesivir, created by the company Gilead Sciences, is already in the last phase of clinical trials in Asia and China. Doctors have reported that it is effective in fighting the disease. However, only randomized clinical trials allow scientists to know for sure if the treatment works.

Another pharmaceutical company, Inovio, which is working on a DNA vaccine, has announced that it will begin clinical trials next month.

The Regeneron company, for its part, tries to isolate the antibodies capable of fighting against the virus and then administer them intravenously in order to provide temporary immunity. She hopes to start clinical trials this summer.

According to the World Health Organization, 80% of cases of Covid-19 contamination are harmless, 14% are serious and almost 5% are critical, causing severe respiratory problems where the lungs fill with oxygen-preventing fluids reach the organs.

Patients with mild cases recover in one to two weeks, while severe cases take an average of six weeks to recover.

According to recent estimates, almost 1% of those infected die.

© 2020 AFP