Covid-19: researchers test a new vaccine on themselves

American scientists from Harvard have decided to test their new coronavirus vaccine on themselves. The team, named Radvacdispenses with any official FDA approval, putting the health risks for researchers in the background.

A product that can be sprayed directly into the nose

“I think the risks associated with Covid-19 are much greater (than our own health), given the many ways we can catch it and its multiple consequences”, explains George Church, geneticist of the Wyss Institute. In addition to Radvac researchers, the vaccine was administered to 90 volunteers.

The vaccine being tested aims to be as simple as possible. The Radvac scientists have thus designed a product that can be sprayed directly into the nose, which it would be possible to inject from home and receive by post. The studies on the MERS and SARS vaccines served as the basis for the development of the immunization.

The polio vaccine

If the initiative is noble, the bioethicist Arthur Caplan judges that the Radvac researchers are “completely crazy”. Yet the story is not unlike that of the polio vaccine. At the time when this viral infection of the spinal cord was ravaging Europe and the United States, causing terrible paralysis and the death of many children, the virologist Jonas Salk decides to test on himself, his family and some volunteers a polio vaccine. On March 26, 1953, he announced to the world that his product was effective.

The race for the coronavirus vaccine is in full swing around the world. The entry of three projects into phase 3 of clinical trials – that developed by the American Moderna, the Briton from the University of Oxford in partnership with AstraZeneca and the Chinese CanSino – gives hope for the development of an effective immunization. by 2021.