Updated: November 15, 2020 11:44:36 pm
Collecting swabs for rapid Covid-19 testing at a municipal dispensary in Deonar in Mumbai (Express Photo by Amit Chakravarty)
Vaccine against the coronavirus (Covid-19): After Pfizer, another US drugmaker, Moderna Inc, is likely to release the first interim analysis data from late-stage trials of its vaccine candidate. Experts have said that Moderna’s candidate, which uses mRNA technology similar to Pfizer’s, will likely prove highly effective as well.
Last week, Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech said their The experimental vaccine was more than 90% effective. in the prevention of Covid-19 based on initial data from its phase III trials. The encouraging results have prompted Anthony Fauci, America’s leading infectious disease expert, to say that the country could begin offering the vaccine to priority groups in late December.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 150 Covid-19 vaccines are currently being developed, with around 44 candidates in clinical trials and 11 undergoing late-stage testing.
Here’s a status check from the pioneers in the Covid-19 vaccine:
Modern vaccine against coronavirus
US drugmaker Moderna Inc recently said that preliminary data from its phase III mRNA-1273 vaccine trials were being prepared for presentation to the monitoring board, raising hopes that initial results will be released soon. The first interim analysis is likely to include more than 53 cases, the trigger point for the analysis, Bloomberg reported. Pfizer’s vaccine analysis evaluated 94 infections among 43,538 trial participants.
“The Pfizer result validates the mRNA platform. Moderna is an mRNA candidate, which we would expect to have similar results, “Bloomberg quoted Fauci.
While Moderna’s final stage test started on the same day as Pfizer’s in late July, the company is slightly behind on schedule. This is so because the two doses of Moderna’s vaccine are given four weeks apart, instead of the three-week interval used for Pfizer’s vaccine.
Moderna has announced that it will seek emergency use authorization for its candidate vaccine in high-risk groups if the mid-term evaluation shows that it is at least 70% effective. The company intends to produce 20 million doses of its experimental vaccine by the end of the year.
Medical workers disinfect themselves before testing for coronavirus at a mall in Omaha, Neb (Calla Kessler / The New York Times)
AstraZeneca-Oxford coronavirus vaccine
In encouraging news for India, the Serum Institute of India, which is conducting phase 2/3 trials of the Oxford University vaccine (nicknamed Covishield in India, said its goal was to produce 100 million (10 crore) doses to December, Bloomberg reported.
Serum Institute Executive Director Adar Poonawalla said the Pune-based company could obtain emergency use authorization in December if data from the last stage of the trial showed that the candidate vaccine provides effective protection against the virus. That initial amount will go to India, Poonawalla said in an interview with Bloomberg.
Poonawalla also said that preliminary results have shown there were no immediate concerns related to the Covishield vaccine. Serum has so far manufactured 40 million doses of the Oxford vaccine in the last two months and aims to start manufacturing the Novavax competitor soon.
The ChAdOx1 vaccine (also named AZD1222 and Covishield in India) is made from a weakened version of a common cold adenovirus that causes infections in chimpanzees. 📣 Express Explained is now on Telegram
Covid-19 testing in a Delhi center. (Express photo by Amit Mehra)
Pfizer coronavirus vaccine
While Pfizer may have been ahead of the vaccine race, becoming the first company to publish preliminary data from late-stage clinical trials, the volunteers compared the side effects of the injection to a “severe hangover” and said that It left them with headaches and fever and muscle aches, according to a Daily Mail report.
One volunteer said she experienced a “headache, fever and whole body aches” after the first dose and that it only became “more severe” after the second. A 44-year-old volunteer said the injection made him feel like he had a “severe hangover.” But, he said, the symptoms disappeared quickly, according to the Daily Mail report.
However, it should be noted that the vaccine trials were double blind, meaning that the participants did not know whether they had received the vaccine or not.
Pfizer is expected to apply for US authorization for emergency use of the vaccine in people ages 16 to 85 in December. To apply for USA, the company will need two months of safety data from about half of the nearly 44,000 study participants, which is expected by the end of this month.
Passengers wearing a face mask at Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport in Kolkata.
Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine
The Russian Covid-19 vaccine, Sputnik-V, developed by the Gamaleya National Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, has arrived in India and trials will begin soon. In India, Dr. Reddy’s will test the candidate vaccine in around 1,500 participants in a phase 2/3 clinical trial at at least 10 sites.
Development comes days later Russian authorities claimed that the Sputnik V vaccine it was 92 percent effective in preventing Covid-19. The findings come from an evaluation of some 16,000 participants, said a spokesman for the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF).
A spokesperson said that there are two forms of Sputnik V vaccine: liquid, which would have to be stored at minus 18 degrees Celsius, and lyophilized (lyophilized), which can be stored at 2-8 degrees Celsius.
Johnson and Johnson Coronavirus Vaccine
Johnson & Johnson, which has been delayed in developing the Covid-19 vaccine after it had to stop its trials in October over a safety issue, will spend around $ 604 million to expand its agreement with the US government. To develop its single injection JNJ-78436735. vaccine. In addition, the Advanced Biomedical Research and Development Authority will allocate about $ 454 million in additional money for the Phase 3 trial.
J&J is currently testing the vaccine, which uses a modified adenovirus like the Oxford injection, in adults in a phase III study of 60,000 volunteers. The firm has said that the first batches of its candidate could be available from January.
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