Although the hunt to develop a vaccine against the deadly coronavirus infection around the globe continues, the numbers of cases are continuously increasing which is worrisome. According to the worldometers tally, coronavirus infection cases across the world are nearing the 50 million mark. While the death toll has increased to more than 1.2 million. Several pharmaceutical companies are presently at various stages of testing their vaccine candidate. This means that the world might have to wait for some more time before it gets its first shot against Covid-19.
Meanwhile, several countries are witnessing a second wave of coronavirus outbreak. Infection cases continue to surge across Europe, after a brief lull in cases. France, Germany has already announced a second national lockdown.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson of the United Kingdom has announced that England will undergo a new four-week lockdown, which will come into effect from Thursday.
Also, the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Sunday said he had been identified as a contact of someone who tested positive for Covid-19 and has self-isolated himself.
Latest updates on a potential Covid-19 vaccine:
1. India’s Bharat Biotech International Limited on Sunday said it is planning to launch its vaccine candidate in the second quarter of 2021, after getting approval from regulatory authorities.
The pharmaceutical company plans to recruit and dosage for the third phase trials of its vaccine in November.
The trial will be conducted in 25 sites across 10-12 states in the country and two doses each for the vaccine and placebo recipients will be provided, said Sai Prasad, Bharat Biotech’s executive director.
2. As per a global study, exercising its manufacturing capabilities, India has pre-order 600 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine. Further, India is on its way of negotiating to buy another billion. The doses ordered will be enough to vaccinate at least half Indian population.
Whereas, the United States, which has the highest number of COVID-19 cases, has pre-ordered more than 810 million doses of the developing vaccines.
It is said that experimental coronavirus vaccines require two doses to see for its effects.
3. With 80 volunteers participating in the initial phase, Israel has initiated the human trials for its novel Coronavirus vaccine candidate. The country intends to expand the number of volunteers to 960 by December. If the first two phases of trials are successful, a third phase will be launched in April/May 2021 with 30,000 volunteers.
The vaccine will be ready for the general public by the end of 2021 summer, only when the two phases show successful results.
4. AstraZeneca Inc has said that Britain’s health regulator has started an ‘accelerated’ review of its potential vaccine. AstraZeneca is working on developing a vaccine along with the University of Oxford. The vaccine candidate is called ‘AZD1222’ or ‘ChAdOx1 to-19.’
The regulators in an ‘accelerated’ review, also called a ‘rolling’ review, can understand the clinical data in real-time and discuss with the drug makers on the manufacturing process and trials to stimulate the clearance procedure.
5- Brazilians have taken to the streets against the Sao Paulo Governors for his decision on enforced vaccination and use of the Chinese coronavirus vaccine being tested in Brazil by Sinovac.
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The protest started on Sunday with more than 300 Brazilians gathered in Sao Paulo protesting against the state Governor João Doria's support for mandatory Covid-19 immunisation and the Sinovac vaccine. The governor has previously favoured compulsory immunisation that steered a disagreement with President Jair Bolsonaro who assured that the vaccine would be voluntary.
In São Paulo, the Doria government is supporting the Sinovac vaccine that is being tested as part of Phase III clinical trials. Last month, Brazil announced that it would buy 46 million doses of the covid-19 vaccine by China, in an agreement to be supported by state governors. But a day later right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro said Brazil would not purchase the China vaccine.