Singapore will start human trials as early as this week for a Covid-19 vaccine being developed by Duke-NUS Medical School and American pharmaceutical company Arcturus Therapeutics, the Straits Times reports.

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‘Lunar-Cov19’ is among 25 vaccine candidates globally to reach human-trials stage and will be tested on 108 healthy volunteers of various ages in Singapore, the newspaper said.

The trial will determine the vaccine’s safety and its ability to produce the “soldiers” needed to help the body fight an infection, Professor Ooi Eng Eong, deputy director of Duke-NUS Medical School’s emerging infectious diseases programme, was cited as saying.