COVID-19 vaccine study from KU Leuven published in Nature

Today, virologists from the Rega Institute at KU Leuven published the results of their research into a candidate vaccine against COVID-19 in the scientific journal Nature . The paper builds on a preprint from the team we reported on earlier this year . The vaccine is based on the existing yellow fever vaccine, against which it also protects.

The authors shared the results of their testing on hamsters in the preprint. “In the hamsters that received the vaccine candidate, we saw up to half a million times fewer virus particles than in the hamsters from the control groups. The animals were also spared a lung infection. The lungs of the test animals from the control groups, on the other hand, were clearly affected, ”explained Professor Johan Neyts at the time.