Covid-19 vaccine news update
While over 165 potential Coronavirus COVID19 Vaccine candidates are at different stages of development, the World Health Organisation has sounded a note of caution regarding the outcome of these trials. However, in India, there is a silver lining as Serum Institute of India (SII) has been granted approval to go ahead with late-stage human trials for the experimental vaccine candidate being produced by the UK-based Oxford-AstraZeneca. India’s first indigenous Coronavirus vaccine candidate COVAXIN has also shown positive results during its Phase 1 and Phase 2 clinical trials.
Coronavirus vaccine Oxford UK, Moderna, Russia, China
The WHO stated that around 26 potential coronavirus vaccine candidates have entered the different stages of human trials around the world. However, vaccine experts claimed that the actual number of potential COVID19 vaccines are three times what the WHO has listed. The University of Oxford-AstraZeneca’s AZD1222 or Covishield has reached Phase 3 of human trials. The US-based Moderna-NIAID’s mRNA-1273 has reached phase 3. Pfizer-BioNTech’s BNT162b2 has reached Phase 3. Chinese firms Sinovac’s vaccine candidate Coronavac has also reached Phase 3. Two candidates of another China firm Sinopharm have reached Phase 3. Russia has claimed that its coronavirus vaccine would be ready this month.Elusive vaccine not a guarantee -WHOMeanwhile, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has claimed that the development of an elusive vaccinethat will neutralize Coronavirus and protect human beings was still not guaranteed. The WHO chief said that a number of vaccines have entered the phase-III human trials. While people around the world are hoping to get a number of effective vaccines that can safeguard us from the highly contagious disease, “there is no silver bullet at the moment, and there might never be”, Tedros said. “There are concerns that we may not have a vaccine that may work or its protection could be for just a few months, not more. But until we finish the clinical trials, we will not know,” the WHO chief said.
Earlier renowned US expert on infectious diseases Anthony Fauci had also said he was “cautiously optimistic” about the development of the Coronavirus COVID19 vaccine by early 2021.
Source: financialexpress.com
