World health organization claims that around 70 coronavirus vaccines are currently in the development process, out of which 3 are in their clinical trials. On April 11, 2020, WHO published the recent, updated list of vaccines against COVID-19 showing the massive companies working to give their shots to halt the coronavirus. Bloomberg News also reported the same document earlier.
LENGTHY, COMPLICATED AND EXPENSIVE PROCEDURE:
With the rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is seen that the virus is infecting more than 1.9 million people worldwide and leading to deaths of around 110,000 people globally. It is because of this reason that the researchers are trying to come up with the vaccine immediately and that too with a safe and effective one that has undergone clinical trials. These researches involve certain organizations, the pharmaceutical giants along with the biotech companies, nonprofit groups, and academic centers. Vaccine development against any infection is lengthy, complicated and one of the expensive projects which takes time and effort. This extensive development process requires hundreds of millions of dollars and many clinical trials for appropriate testing of the vaccine to determine the efficacy and safety of the vaccine.
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COMPANIES COMING UP WITH VACCINE DEVELOPMENT GLOBALLY:
The current 2020 coronavirus pandemic is the third outbreak after SARS and MERS within the 21st century, for which we still don’t have any approved vaccines. Health officials and drug makers are significantly hoping to reduce the timelines for the development and trials of the vaccine because of the current deadly situation by the virus. Cansino Biologics and Beijing Institute of Biotechnology that are Hong Kong-listed is working on phase two of the human clinical trials regarding the vaccine experiment. US-based biotech startups Moderna and Inovio Pharmaceuticals have both started human testing regarding the coronavirus vaccine. Other large corporations like Sanofi and Johnson and Johnson are also racing to develop coronavirus vaccine. Progress regarding the vaccine is speedy when compared to normal vaccines which takes around 10-15 years but for the recent infectious pandemic, the companies are trying to come up with the vaccine most probably till next year.
CanSino received the Chinese regulatory approval for starting the human trials for the coronavirus vaccine. Moderna which is Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Company also received regulatory approval for moving with the human trials during March and Inovio started the human trials during the last week without performing any animal trials.
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A TIMELINE OF AROUND 12-18 MONTHS:
According to the director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Anthony Fauci says that the US is still far away from seeing the coronavirus vaccine i.e. it will take around 12-18 months at least for the development of the vaccine. Some experts are also warned to give any timeline as it is a risky plan that might receive backfire. According to Paul Offit who is the co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine said that on CNN that when Dr.Fauci said at least 12-18 months for the development of coronavirus vaccine, he thought it was ridiculously optimistic. He further said that I’m sure he did that too.
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ESSENTIAL STEPS WHICH SHOULD BE CONSIDERED FOR VACCINE DEVELOPMENT:
New vaccines need to be tested first within the lab, then tested on animals and humans for determining the safety of the vaccine before tested on a larger group of human beings to prevent the enhancement of the disease. Experts and researchers are concerned that if any of these steps are bypassed, a person’s immune system might get enhanced against the virus leading to less efficacy of the vaccine against the virus. Peter Hotez who is the dean of the National School of tropical medicine at Baylor College of Medicine said that the way you reduce the risk is to consider using the vaccine on animals first. Start News further reports that in a rush to find a new vaccine against coronavirus, drug makers are skipping the essential animal trials for vaccine development. Hotez further said that we understand the importance of accelerating the deadline for vaccine development in general during this pandemic but from what we know this will not be the vaccine that we want against the deadly pandemic.
References : WHO, Bloomberg, Businessinsider, Chictr, CNN