A clinical trial for a possible coronavirus vaccine is reportedly about to begin.
An anonymous government official told the Associated Press the trial's first participant will receive an experimental dose of the vaccine Monday. It's taking place at a Kaiser Permanente research facility in Seattle and is being funded by the National Institutes of Health.
The AP says 45 young, healthy volunteers will be given different doses of shots developed by the NIH and Moderna Inc. The shots don't contain the virus itself, so the participants aren't at risk of getting infected. The purpose of the test is to make sure the potential vaccine has no serious side effects.
This is a major step toward creating a vaccine for the coronavirus. But public health officials have said it could take up to 18 months to confirm that a potential vaccine actually works.
As of early Monday, there were more than 169,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus worldwide and over 6,500 deaths. More than 77,000 patients have recovered.
Contains footage from CNN.
