Oxford begins stage 3 testing in the USA.

A volunteer is injected with a test vaccine as part of a vaccine trial at a London clinic. (AP Photo, Kirsty Wigglesworth, file)

Coronavirus Vaccine Tracker (COVID-19): The new coronavirus vaccine you are developing Oxford University and AstraZeneca has started phase 3 clinical trials in the United States. The vaccine is already undergoing phase 3 testing in several countries, including India, Brazil, England and South Africa. The company said testing in Japan and Russia is likely to begin soon.

In the US trials, about 30,000 participants are likely to enroll. Globally, the Oxford vaccine trials are expected to involve 50,000 participants. In India, phase 2 trials of the vaccine began last week, and about 1,600 participants are likely to be enrolled for the combined phase 2 and phase 3 trials. Read in Malayalam

In the United States, developers hope to obtain initial data from these trials by October, which could open up the possibility of a emergency use authorization ahead of the US presidential election, as President Donald Trump has claimed.

Covid-19 Vaccine Tracker, Sept. 3: US Could Get a Chance in Early November

The US government is reported to have reached an agreement with AstraZeneca to grant an emergency use authorization for its vaccine if initial phase 3 data is favorable. The company has denied these reports. But in recent days, there have been several suggestions that the United States could be moving toward getting an early vaccine, even before the entire phase 3 trial process and analysis of its data was completed. The Food and Drug Administration, the country’s drug regulator, has also said that was opened grant emergency clearances to suitable vaccine candidates even before the completion of phase 3 trials, if you consider that the benefits of doing so outweigh the risks involved.

Another leading competitor to build the coronavirus vaccine, the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, was also reported to have said that the first data from their phase 3 trials would be available in October. The vaccine being developed by Pfizer, along with its partner BioNTech, is also undergoing phase 3 trials at this time.

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In the meantime, Reuters reported that AstraZeneca had extended an existing manufacturing agreement with UK-based Oxford Biomedica to mass produce its vaccine, with the expectation of fast-track approval in the United States. It did not say how many doses were supposed to be made under the expanded agreement.

Search for the coronavirus vaccine: the story so far

• More than 175 vaccine candidates in preclinical or clinical trials
• 33 of them in clinical trials
• Eight in final stages, phase III human trials
• At least eight potential vaccines are under development in India. Two of them have entered phase II trials after completing phase I.

(As of Aug 28; source: WHO Coronavirus Vaccine Overview Aug 28, 2020)

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