News and updates on a vaccine for the novel coronavirus has the attention of people the world over. With over 1.5 crore people across the globe having contracted the infection, the world is eagerly awaiting a vaccine that would bolster the global fight against COVID-19. Researchers and medical experts are working on various possible candidates that have shown some promise.
Of the various vaccine candidates that are at different trial stages, three have reached the final stage and have reportedly shown good results so far. The vaccine being developed by Oxford University in collaboration with British pharma company AstraZeneca has emerged as the most promising one till date. The other two candidates also at the human trial phase are Chinese pharmaceutical firm Sinovac Biotech's CoronaVac and Moderna Inc's COVID-19 vaccine.
In India, human trials of COVAXIN, the country's first indigenous COVID-19 developed by the Hyderabad-based pharmaceutical company Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the National Institute of Virology (NIV) and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), have also begun.
Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine
The vaccine, developed by the Jenner Institute at the University of Oxford, is being touted as the most promising among the various candidates. It has been licensed to British-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca.
The experimental vaccine produced an immune response in early-stage clinical trials, preserving hopes that it could be in use by the end of 2020.
Meanwhile, the varsity has tied up with Adar Poonawalla's Serum Institute of India to manufacture and supply the vaccine to India and over 60 other countries. Serum Institute has said it will begin trials of the COVID-19 vaccine candidate by the end of August and the vaccine may reach the market by first quarter of 2021.
Moderna's vaccine
Moderna's vaccine candidate against COVID-19, officially dubbed the mRNA-1273, reportedly led to production of antibodies that can neutralise the novel coronavirus. However, it led to minor side-effects in many patients, according to data from an early-stage trial of the experimental shot.
What is interesting about this particular candidate is that its sequence was finalised by an infectious disease research team at Moderna Therapeutics, along with experts at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) within two days of the Chinese authorities sharing the genetic sequence of the virus in January earlier this year. Also, it took just 63 days for the potential vaccine to move from the stage of sequence to dosing the first human participant, a process that usually takes six months.
Sinovac Biotech's CoronaVac
China's Sinovac Biotech has also dived right into the Phase III trials of its potential coronavirus vaccine in Brazil. With this, it became one of the three companies to move into the late stages in the race to develop an inoculation against the disease. Meanwhile, Bangladesh has also approved the third-phase trial of CoronaVac.
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