We’ve been hearing, reading, and probably watching a lot of reports on the COVID-19 pandemic since its inception. Form reports claiming that “it’s just a hoax”, “it’ll go away as soon as the temperature rises”, “it may be in XYZ nation but, it's not going to arrive here”, “ABC medicine can cure the virus”, “it might be the end of the world as we know it”, to vaccine-related claims/ reports such as “there isn’t going to be a vaccine before 1, 2, 5, 10 years!”.
Most of our readers would agree that these reports have done nothing but confuse us on the matter.
Through this article, we will try to demystify some of the facts from fiction and try to provide you with the most accurate and unbiased information presently available and hope that reading this article will solve some of the questions that you had in your minds since the day this pandemic first began.
Who is manufacturing the vaccine?
Presently, there are said to be over 100 contenders working towards developing and distributing a vaccine that would hopefully be effective in combating this infectious disease. The United States President, Donald Trump, introduced “Operation Warp Speed” which is a partnership program between the government of the United States and several private companies to facilitate and accelerate the development, manufacturing, and distribution of COVID- 19 vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics.
Who are the major contenders in this “vaccine race?”
Johnson & Johnson (Janssen Pharmaceutical), AstraZeneca-University of Oxford, Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Merck, Vaxart, Inovio, and Novavax are a few of the major organizations that have been funded by the U.S.A govt. and are working towards developing a COVID- 19 vaccine. Funding from BARDA totaled more than $2 billion by the end of June, with the largest awards of $1.2 billion given to AstraZeneca and $483 million to Moderna.
In July, Operation Warp Speed invested $1.6 billion in Novavax – a company with no history of marketed products – to produce 100 million doses of its candidate vaccine, marking the largest individual deal to date, however, AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford seem to be leading in this race to develop a vaccine before its peers.
Are there any Indian companies working towards developing a vaccine?
Yes! Initially, there were said to have been 30 Indian companies that were in the race to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, however, reports suggest that there are now only 7 companies who were given a “thumbs up” by the W.H.O for developing their respective vaccines which are currently in different stages of testing and clinical studies.
COVAXIN, developed by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech International Limited (BBIL), in collaboration with ICMR and NIV, Pune was the first vaccine to get regulatory approvals for clinical trials. The vaccine makes use of an inactive version of a virus to spike up the production of antibodies in the host body and just recently initiated phase I and II of testing.
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When will the vaccine be available?
As per the recent statements that were issued on behalf of the Serum Institute of India (SII) it will be starting trials of the COVID-19 vaccine candidate developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca by the end of August and the vaccine may reach the market by the first quarter of 2021.
The CEO of SII, Mr. Adar Poonawala stated, "It's probably gonna be December and for the first quarter of 2021. Because to reach all the parts of the country, it is going to take some time. So once you make a product to have it tested yourself in your company and then it goes CDI which is the national release in Kasauli and after that only can a batch be released to the public. All that of course is being expedited. So if you put all this together realistically large volumes for India will be the first quarter. But a few million doses will be available to the more immunocompromised like the healthcare workers. We are planning to have that by December."
We hope that this article answered all of your questions and hope that has helped in relieving some of those Vaccine related “Jitters and Anxiety”.