Hundreds of brave volunteers are beginning to receive their first dose of a vaccine doctors at Henry Ford Health System in Detroit hope will lead to protection against the deadly coronavirus that has claimed more than 706,000 lives worldwide, including 6,221 in Michigan.

Henry Ford is the only health system in Michigan that is participating in a third phase human clinical trials for Moderna’s mRNA-1273 Coronavirus Efficacy (COVE) vaccine study. Click here for more information about the trial.

About 2,500 will receive the potential vaccine and 2,500 will receive a placebo in Michigan. A total of 90 health systems across the nation are testing a total of 30,000 people in the trial.

“This is a historic moment,” said Marcus Zervos, M.D., Henry Ford’s division chief of infectious disease, in a statement. “A vaccine is our best hope in the fight against COVID-19, and we’re glad to be a part of bringing this opportunity to the Midwest.”

If successful, it’s unclear when the Moderna vaccine could be available for distribution. Some say early 2021 for some populations, but most experts believe not until next summer. Research subjects to the Henry Ford study will continue to be monitored for the next two years.

In a press release, Henry Ford described why Ashley Wilson, 24, one of the first volunteers, decided to participate in the study. She graduated from the University of Michigan in 2018 and worked in the public policy field in downtown Manhattan earlier this year when COVID-19 hit and many of her friends and coworkers became sick and died.

“It was very evident in New York City how dangerous this virus is and how dangerous normal, everyday things can be, like going to the grocery store,” Wilson said in a statement. “It was literal destruction: friends of coworkers dying, family members of coworkers dying, kids my age dying.”

She moved back home this summer to her parents’ home in Taylor.

Henry Ford said the Moderna vaccine study will continue to sign up people until 30,000 volunteers are registered. Enrollment sites include Henry Ford Hospital ER entrance in Detroit, Health Alliance Plan headquarters in Detroit and 1 Ford Place in Detroit.

Volunteers will receive two shots spaced about a month apart. They will visit their enrollment site five additional times and talk to study coordinators about 24 times over two years.

During that time, participants will be closely monitored by the study team for symptoms of COVID-19 and will be tested to see if they have produced the antibodies to protect them from the coronavirus. If a participant is diagnosed with COVID-19 during their time in the study, the study team will provide the highest level of care, Henry Ford said.

Researchers are particularly interested in recruiting:

• Those at high risk of COVID-19 infection, defined as adults whose locations or circumstances put them at greater risk of exposure to the virus responsible for COVID-19
• Adults who are at high risk for severe COVID-19 based on age of 65 years or older
• Adults who are at high risk due to pre-existing medical conditions that are stable at the time of screening

While most vaccines are made from a weakened or inactive virus, the mRNA-1273 study vaccine for COVID-19 is made from messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA), a genetic code that tells cells how to make protein. The protein is a small part of the virus that is thought to help the body’s immune system make antibodies to fight the virus.

Besides the Moderna vaccine study, there are 165 vaccines in development with 27 in human trials, according to the New York Times Coronavirus Vaccine Tracker. The Moderna trial was the first to begin human trials.

Pfizer Inc. and Biontech said their coronavirus vaccine research also is moving to the human trial phase with 30,000 test subjects from Argentina, Brazil and Germany. The companies said they plan to seek regulatory review as early as October 2020. If successful, they plan to supply up to 100 million doses by the end of 2020 and as many as 1.3 billion doses by the end of 2021.

Pfizer has invested in its Kalamazoo location to prepare it for COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing, if its vaccine is found to be effective.

One of the unknowns with a vaccine for COVID-19 disease is how long antibodies can survive to fight the infection. Some studies show they begin to disappear within months. If antibodies are short-lasting and offer limited protection against coronavirus, it is possible people will need to continue wearing masks and social distancing long after people are vaccinated, experts say.

But the country’s top infectious disease expert, Anthony Fauci, M.D., of the National Institutes of Health, said he is “cautiously optimistic” that researchers will develop longer lasting vaccines.

“We know the body can make an adequate response against this virus” after two shots of a vaccine being tested, Fauci said in an interview with Kaiser Health. “There’s no reason to believe that we won’t be able to develop a vaccine against it.”