Today, COVID-19 has infected over 18 lakh cases worldwide while claiming lives of over a lakh people, it seems things are getting worse day by day.?
While our world is trying its best to contain the novel coronavirus, we all know that we need a vaccine a medication to put an end to the COVID-19 crisis once and for all. Companies around the world are striving hard to develop a vaccine that works efficiently.?
And now, (reported first by Bloomberg) WHO has revealed that there are 70 COVID-19 vaccines under development right now, and three of these are already going through the human trials phase.
The first in the trio is the vaccine developed by Hong Kong¡¯s CanSino Biologics and Beijing Institue of Biotechnology. The vaccine development has already reached the phase 2 stage.?
The other two Coronavirus vaccines are being developers by drugmakers in the US -- Moderna Inc. and Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc -- both of which are in phase 1 stage.
Moderna¡¯s vaccine consists of genetic material called messenger RNA, or mRNA, that was produced in a lab. The mRNA is essentially a genetic code that instructs cells how to form a protein. The mRNA tells the body¡¯s own cellular mechanisms for making proteins that looks similar to the virus proteins, thus forming an immune response.
Invio that started its trials last week has a different approach. The vaccine is called INO-4800 and its a DNA vaccine, which works by injecting an engineered plasmid in a patient¡¯s body to help the body create its own antibodies to ward of a particular infection (in this case, COVID-19).?
Even though these vaccines are ahead of the rest, there is still time for them to come out in the market and start saving lives. We will have to wait patiently, and till then precaution is going to be our greatest weapon against COVID-19.
Additionally, major players in the pharmaceutical world like Pfizer, Sanofi, Johnson & Johnson are also working on vaccines, but they¡¯re still in their pre-clinical stages and will take time to get to human testing.?