As countries across the world speed up the process to find a cure for deadly coronavirus, there have been a few positives in recent weeks as human trials of the possible vaccine continue in various countries.
While Oxford University's vaccine has moved into the next phase of its development,?China?is also making headway as the vaccine has completed two phases of clinical or human trials.
The development on the vaccine is also gaining momentum in other countries. Here's the latest on vaccine that are being developed.
1. AstraZeneca expects vaccine by September
British pharma giant AstraZeneca is "on track" to begin rolling out up to two billion doses of a coronavirus vaccine in September if ongoing trials prove successful, its chief executive said on Friday.
The company is partnering with Oxford University, which has pioneered the vaccine, and is already manufacturing doses before seeking final regulatory approval once testing concludes in the coming months.
2. US-based Moderna begins Phase II human trials?
Massachusetts-based biotechnology giant Moderna has commenced stage 2 trials for its new coronavirus vaccine and aims to enroll 600 participants, up from 45 participants in the phase 1 trials.
According to Forbes, Moderna is looking to start phase 3 trials by July for its vaccine candidate named mRNA-1273.??
¡°Phase 2 trials may be viewed as more crucial compared to other phases for a couple of reasons. While phase 1 trials are used to ascertain the safety of a vaccine or treatment in humans, phase 2 trials gauge the effectiveness and also provide more data on how safe it is,¡± said the report this week.
3. China expects COVID-19 vaccine mass output by year end
The vaccine, jointly developed by the Beijing Institute of Biological Products and China National Biotec Group Co., has completed phase II testing and may be ready for the market at the end of this year or early next year, a report recently revealed.
The production line for the vaccine will be fully disinfected and closed in preparation for output to start this week, and will have a full manufacturing capacity of 100 million-120 million vaccines each year.
4. Pharmaceutical major Pfizer believes vaccine could be ready by October
Global pharmaceutical major Pfizer believes that a vaccine to prevent COVID-19 could be available by October.
Pfizer is conducting clinical trials in the US and Europe for the BNT162 vaccine programme to prevent Covid-19 in collaboration with German mRNA company BioNTech.?
So far, over 120 vaccines have been proposed across the world. Currently, there are at least 10 candidate vaccines in in clinical evaluation and 115 candidate vaccines in pre-clinical evaluation.