Top 5 most promising 'corona' vaccine contenders

New Delhi, Nov 20: It's been a year since Coronavirus emerged. The world still grapples with the pandemic. The battle against the COVID shifted into a new gear this week with prominent vaccine candidates showing encouraging results with over 90 per cent efficacy in the final-stage trials.

Here is what we know so far about the global race to produce a vaccine.

How many vaccine candidates in the pipeline?

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has identified 48 "candidate vaccines" at the stage of clinical trials in humans, up from 11 in mid-June.

Twelve of them are at the most advanced "phase 3" stage, in which a vaccine's effectiveness is tested on a large scale, generally tens of thousands of people across several continents.

Pfizer and BioNTech

Global drugmakers Pfizer and BioNTech said their COVID-19 vaccine was found 95 per cent effective in the final analysis of the phase 3 trial, including in people aged over 65 years, paving the way for the companies to apply for emergency authorisation from US regulators within days.

If all goes well I could imagine that we gain approval in the second half of December and start deliveries before Christmas, but really only if all goes positively.

BioNTech said they have concluded phase 3 study of their mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine candidate BNT162b2, meeting all primary efficacy endpoints.

Based on current projections, the companies expect to produce globally up to 50 million vaccine doses in 2020 and up to 1.3 billion doses by the end of 2021.

Moderna

US-based biotechnology giant Moderna announced that its COVID-19 vaccine has shown to be 94.5 per cent effective in preventing the deadly disease, bringing a glimmer of hope to a world ravaged by the pandemic.

By the end of 2020, the company expects to have approximately 20 million doses of mRNA-1273 ready to ship in the US. The Company remains on track to manufacture 500 million to 1 billion doses globally in 2021

The announcements about the vaccines and their potential availability for use among the general population in the coming weeks and months has offered hope to millions around the world in a year that has seen the COVID-19 pandemic devastate lives and economies and still showing no signs of abating.

Sputnik V

Sputnik V vaccine for COVID-19, which is being developed by Russia's Gamaleya National Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, has demonstrated an efficacy rate of 92 per cent.

On August 11, 2020, the Sputnik V vaccine was registered by the Ministry of Health of Russia and became the worlds first registered vaccine against COVID-19 based on the human adenoviral vectors platform.

Separately, in September the vaccine was first administered to a group of volunteers from the red zones of Russian hospitals.

Oxford-AstraZeneca's Covishield

The Oxford COVID-19 vaccine should be available for healthcare workers and elderly people by around February 2021 and by April for the general public, and will be priced at a maximum of Rs 1,000 for two necessary doses for the public, depending on the final trial results and regulatory approvals. Probably by 2024, every Indian will get vaccinated.

The Oxford-Astrazeneca vaccine is so far proving to work very well even in elderly people, which was a concern earlier. There have been no major complaints, reactions or adverse events.

Bharat Biotech's COVAXIN

The Covid-19 vaccine, Covaxin, being developed by Bharat Biotech is now undergoing phase-3 trials. Last month the vaccine maker said it had successfully completed interim analysis of Phase I and II trials of the vaccine and is initiating Phase-III trials in 26,000 participants.