The global COVID-19 pandemic continues to claim victims worldwide, representing a health and socioeconomic challenge with few precedents in human history. The therapeutic agents used to treat COVID-19 infection are mostly aimed at avoiding the most serious complications and organ damage that in a percentage of cases can be fatal. Recently, the first COVID-19 vaccines have been authorised, starting a massive vaccination campaign worldwide. The COVID-19 vaccines authorized or under testing use different methods of action such as mRNA, DNA vaccine, viral vector, protein subunit, and virus inactivated immunization strategies. The mRNA vaccines are the first authorised vaccines with this new method of action, initiating a new era of preventive medicine. To date, data indicate that they may be effective against the newly identified SARS-CoV-2 variants. Short-term studies indicated an acceptable safety profile but long-term immunity as well as safety is not yet available. In this article, we briefly describe mRNA vaccines and highlight some aspects yet to be fully defined.

全球 COVID-19 大流行继续在全球范围内造成受害者，这是人类历史上鲜有先例的健康和社会经济挑战。用于治疗 COVID-19 感染的治疗剂主要旨在避免最严重的并发症和器官损伤，这些并发症和器官损伤在一定比例的病例中可能是致命的。最近，首批 COVID-19 疫苗已获得批准，在全球范围内开始了大规模的疫苗接种运动。授权或正在测试的 COVID-19 疫苗使用不同的作用方法，例如 mRNA、DNA 疫苗、病毒载体、蛋白质亚基和病毒灭活免疫策略。mRNA疫苗是第一个采用这种新作用方法的授权疫苗，开启了预防医学的新时代。迄今为止，数据表明它们可能对新发现的 SARS-CoV-2 变体有效。短期研究表明安全性可接受，但长期免疫和安全性尚不可用。在本文中，我们简要介绍了 mRNA 疫苗并强调了一些尚未完全定义的方面。