As on today, 165 types of Covid-19 vaccines are undergoing either clinical or pre-clinical trials. Among these vaccines 26 are being screened under clinical trials, while 139 vaccines are known to be registered for pre-clinical evaluation around the globe.
Quoting from the source of World Health Organisation (WHO), young scientist from Bhubaneswar, Dr Swayam Prakash busy in such research work in the USA told that such a vaccine for human consumption is likely to be available by November.
He stated specifically that all the clinical trials are supposed to undergo three clinical stages known as Phase-1, Phase-2 and Phase-3 before being declared fit for human usage and subsequently for large-scale manufacturing.
Dr Swayam further mentioned that in the race to deliver a vaccine to get respite from the pathogenic SARS-CoV-2, atleast 6 vaccines are being developed from collaborative efforts among world’s leading ulniversities and big pharmaceutical companies.
Currently out of the 26 vaccines undergoing clinical trials, USA alone is involved in developing 4 vaccines such as Moderna/NIAID, Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies, Novavax and Kentucky Bio-processing, Inc. Also, at the front run is China in the race to priduce Covid-19 vaccine with clinical trial of five vaccines in its territory.
UK and India are involved in preparing vaccines each within their territories. UK is developing two vaccines with the Oxford University/AstraZeneca; and Imperial College London. While Cadila Healthcare Limited, and Bharath Biotech are either performing Phase-1 or transitioned into Phase-2 clinical trials in different parts of India.
Scientists in five other countries like Japan (Osaka University/AnGes/Takara Bio), Russia (Gamaleya Research Institute), South Korea (Genexine Consortium), Germany (Curevac), and Canada (Medicago) are also frontrunners to develop Covid-19 vaccine and progressed into different phases of clinical trial with their research.
Amidst all global chaos and fast changing geo-politics, scientists from big pharmaceutical companies and leading universities also came forward and six joint vaccine development programmes are being conducted at this moment in collaboration among nations. Such joint research programmes are conducted by Australia-South Korea (Vaxine Pty Ltd/Medytox), Australia-UK (University of Queensland/CSL/Seqirus), USA-Singapore (Arcturus/Duke-NUS), USA-UK-China (Clover Biopharmaceuticals Inc./GSK/Dynavax), USA-Taiwan (Medigen Vaccine Biologics Corporation/NIAID/Dynavax), USA-Germany-China (BioNTech/Pfizer/Fosun Pharma).
Also, the International Vaccine Institute, which is an organization of the United National Development Programme is preparing a Covid-19 vaccine which is transitioning into Phase-2 clinical trial in collaboration with the Inovio Pharmaceuticals, USA.
